Government’s proposed law to allow judges from Commonwealth territories is grossly unfair to local attorneys who aspire to be judges and it’s also an insult to judges who can handle specialist cases as well as any Commonwealth judge, Independent senator Sophia Chote has said.
Chote expressed the view at yesterday’s Senate session in debate on the Miscellaneous Provisions Bill designed to increase judges from 49 to 64. It allows judges from the Commonwealth to practice in T&T. Chote said while she may be speaking to “deaf ears”, she had to defend T&T’s Bar on the issue.
Saying Government wasn’t just opening the door to Commonwealth judges, it was “blowing the door open,” she felt the provision would create inequality for local practitioners.
“We’re creating an unequal system which will foster inequity between our own people— our attorneys— and their capacity to be ambitious to want to be a judge— we’re treating them less generously than people of other Commonwealth countries,”
She noted that Caribbean jurisprudence had evolved with its own identity and independence particularly for independent states like T&T.
The Council of Legal Education facilitated this. Yet 56 years after T&T’s independence, the proposed law would say who will adjudicate, she said.
Chote noted a remark by Government Senator Garvin Simonnette who’d cited Ghana and Nigeria as potential sources of Commonwealth judges for T&T. “If that’s being contemplated as a potential source for Commonwealth judges, we need to look at their jurisprudence systems to see whether they are in line with T&T’s and they’re not,” she added.
“This (legislation) is a bad idea since we have our own jurisprudence and unique judicial and legal ties — enough to create a Caribbean Court of Justice — but we’re taking a step backward in bringing people who aren’t qualified in the way they should be, to be judges here.”
She said the systems of Ghana and Nigeria were more in line with India and Pakistan’s whose jurisprudence system were also not a good fit for T&T.
She noted Ghana, Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Guyana also don’t utilise the Privy Council and their systems have developed without that factor, though Caribbean systems use the Privy Council.
“So there’s a disparity between the jurisprudence knowledge of people who’ve practiced in those countries as opposed to T&T and other regional states.”
Chote said only three universities provide law degrees like UWI’s — including on constitutional law — but other institutions don’t give students the grounding they need to be certified to practice in T&T and to be a judge here.
Noting Nigeria and Ghana set up special courts to deal with financial cases and sexual offences Chote felt the purpose of the proposed T&T law was to set up courts to deal with such issues also.
Attorney General Faris Al- Rawi said that wasn’t contemplated by Government.
Chote debunked the view that she was rejecting the situation because of judges from Nigeria and Ghana.
“The same problems applies for Canada,” she noted.