Geisha Kow­lessar

With the Law As­so­ci­a­tion elec­tion just un­der two weeks away, an­oth­er se­nior coun­sel is vy­ing for the pres­i­den­cy. Seenath Jairam, SC, a for­mer mem­ber of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion and High Court judge, who yes­ter­day de­cid­ed to run for the post, wants to es­tab­lish stricter tab­u­lat­ing meth­ods for the as­so­ci­a­tion's funds.

Once elect­ed, Jairam said, he would en­sure all funds be­long­ing to the as­so­ci­a­tion are prop­er­ly ac­count­ed for, ac­cord­ing to best prac­tice stan­dards. Apart from Jairam, Is­rael Khan, SC, and Stan­ley Mar­cus, SC, are al­so con­test­ing the pres­i­den­cy. Le­gal sources said Mar­cus may pull out of the race, how­ev­er.

Jairam said his de­ci­sion to run for the pres­i­den­cy stemmed from pro­fes­sion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and the de­sire to up­lift the le­gal pro­fes­sion. "I be­lieve I have a pro­fes­sion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the pro­fes­sion and an oblig­a­tion to the younger at­tor­neys to pro­vide guid­ance, lead­er­ship and to up­lift the stan­dards of the Bar," Jairam added. The as­so­ci­a­tion's for­mer pres­i­dent Dana See­ta­hal, SC, re­signed on May 7.

All oth­er coun­cil mem­bers al­so of­fered their res­ig­na­tions to the mem­ber­ship af­ter $284,000 went miss­ing from the as­so­ci­a­tion's ac­counts. See­ta­hal has said she had no knowl­edge that the funds were be­ing mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed by an em­ploy­ee in the as­so­ci­a­tion's of­fice. This is­sue, Jairam said, has re­mained trou­bling for most lawyers. He al­so called for prop­er meth­ods to be im­ple­ment­ed to en­sure greater trans­paren­cy.

"Giv­en the re­cent events which have emerged re­gard­ing monies en­trust­ed to the as­so­ci­a­tion, I think most at­tor­neys, if not all, are trou­bled by those events," Jairam said. "We there­fore need to have in place prop­er checks and bal­ances and to en­sure that staff em­ployed by the as­so­ci­a­tion car­ry out their du­ties with fi­deli­ty, loy­al­ty and ef­fi­cien­cy and there are ran­dom checks to en­sure the funds en­trust­ed to the as­so­ci­a­tion are all ac­count­ed for, in ac­cor­dance with ac­cept­ed ac­count­ing stan­dards." In out­lin­ing his pro­posed ob­jec­tives for the as­so­ci­a­tion, Jairam said these in­clud­ed:

• Pro­mot­ing the pur­pos­es of the as­so­ci­a­tion as set out in Sec­tion Five of the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act Chap­ter 90.03;

• mak­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tions to Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie for im­proved re­la­tions be­tween that Bench and the Bar;

• work­ing with the ju­di­cia­ry and the ex­ec­u­tive to en­sure the con­di­tions of ser­vice for judges and mag­is­trates are such as to at­tract the best can­di­dates;

• work­ing with the ju­di­cia­ry, the ser­vice com­mis­sions and the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion to im­prove the terms and con­di­tions of ser­vice, in­clud­ing pen­sion;

• rein­tro­duc­ing train­ing ethics, writ­ing and ad­vo­ca­cy for all mem­bers, but es­pe­cial­ly new at­tor­neys; and

• a sys­tem of men­tor­ing young at­tor­neys to im­prove the ethics and stan­dards of the pro­fes­sion.