Derek Achong

The Court of Ap­peal yes­ter­day ruled that State at­tor­neys are not en­ti­tled to vote in the up­com­ing Law As­so­ci­a­tion elec­tions. In dis­miss­ing the ap­peal, which was brought by more than 300 state at­tor­neys or law of­fi­cers, Court of Ap­peal judges Al­lan Men­don­ca, Ra­jen­dra Nar­ine and Gre­go­ry Smith agreed with an ear­li­er rul­ing de­liv­ered by High Court judge Mau­reen Ra­j­nauth-Lee on March 25.

In light of yes­ter­day's judg­ment, the as­so­ci­a­tion's elec­tions are now ex­pect­ed to go ahead on June 29. The elec­tions and the as­so­ci­a­tion's an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing, which were ini­tial­ly set for March, has been post­poned sev­er­al times while the statu­to­ry in­ter­pre­ta­tion suit was be­ing heard in the High Court and then ap­pealed.

In May the as­so­ci­a­tion's pres­i­dent Dana See­ta­hal, SC, re­signed from the post, along with oth­er ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers, as con­tention emerged over funds of more than $200,000 which was found to be miss­ing from the as­so­ci­a­tion's ac­counts. The miss­ing funds are be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Fraud Squad.

Since the ex­ec­u­tive's mass res­ig­na­tion, on­ly one se­nior mem­ber-Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan-has ex­pressed a de­sire to con­test the post of pres­i­dent. Queen's Coun­sel Karl Hud­son-Phillips, one of the longest-serv­ing mem­bers of the lo­cal le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty, was asked to con­test the post by some se­nior mem­bers, but has de­clined.

In her statu­to­ry in­ter­pre­ta­tion judg­ment, Ra­j­nauth-Lee said in or­der to at­tend and vote at gen­er­al meet­ings or at an elec­tion, or to be elect­ed to the coun­cil, state at­tor­neys must pay the as­so­ci­a­tion's an­nu­al sub­scrip­tions. Ac­cord­ing to the Le­gal Pro­fes­sion Act, which Ra­j­nauth-Lee was asked to in­ter­pret, a state at­tor­ney or law of­fi­cer is ex­empt from pay­ing those an­nu­al fees.

Such of­fi­cers in­clude lawyers at the of­fices of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), Chief State So­lic­i­tor and Chief Par­lia­men­tary Coun­sel. As a sec­ondary is­sue in the law­suit, Ra­j­nauth-Lee ruled that ju­di­cial re­search as­sis­tants were al­so to be con­sid­ered law of­fi­cers. Ju­di­cial re­search as­sis­tants help judges with le­gal re­search.

In his 17-page judg­ment yes­ter­day Jus­tice Nar­ine, while ap­ply­ing the lit­er­al ap­proach of statu­to­ry in­ter­pre­ta­tion, said Par­lia­ment's in­ten­tion in con­struct­ing the act was clear. As part of the ap­peal, the three judges were asked to in­ter­pret sev­er­al sec­tions of the act.

"It is clear from the words used that they (law of­fi­cers) are not re­quired to pay an an­nu­al sub­scrip­tion or a con­tri­bu­tion to the Com­pen­sa­tion Fund, sub­ject to sec­tion 9(2), which makes it com­pul­so­ry for them to pay their an­nu­al sub­scrip­tion to the as­so­ci­a­tion in or­der to ex­er­cise the priv­i­leges con­tained in sec­tion 9(2)(a) and (b)," Nar­ine said.

The as­so­ci­a­tion was rep­re­sent­ed by Se­nior Coun­sel Alvin Fitz­patrick and at­tor­ney Shiv Shar­ma while Ian Ben­jamin and Ravi Heffes-Doon ap­peared for the law of­fi­cers. Rus­sell Mar­tineau, SC ap­peared on the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's be­half.