JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh says his new role is go­ing to be, as the lo­cal par­lance goes, “pres­sure!”

But with a smile—and the sup­port of Ap­peal Court Judges Ge­of­frey Hen­der­son and Ricky Rahim, who joined him in a spe­cial sit­ting yes­ter­day along with oth­er mem­bers of the Ju­di­cia­ry—he as­sured that he is ready for the chal­lenge.

“What you have said to­day brings a lot of pres­sure on me, but it is some­thing I signed up for by ac­cept­ing the ap­point­ment,” Boodoos­ingh said. “It comes with the ter­ri­to­ry, and I’m will­ing to meet the chal­lenges that will come.”

The spe­cial sit­ting was con­vened to of­fi­cial­ly wel­come Boodoos­ingh as Chief Jus­tice. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers, the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (LATT), the Reg­is­trar’s Of­fice, and the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion (CBA) all com­mend­ed him for his in­tegri­ty, hu­mil­i­ty, and le­gal acu­men.

Boodoos­ingh, who al­so lec­tures part-time, paid trib­ute to two in­fant school teach­ers who he said played a foun­da­tion­al role in shap­ing his life and in­spir­ing his com­mit­ment to pub­lic ser­vice. While he de­clined to out­line his plans just yet, he said he would meet with key stake­hold­ers in the com­ing weeks.

“Over the next few days and weeks, I’m go­ing to meet with the stake­hold­ers. The bench is on­ly as strong as the bar—it sup­ports the bench. I hope there will be deep col­lab­o­ra­tion so that we can con­tin­ue do­ing the things we do well, and im­prove the things that need im­prove­ment. There will be a lot of hard work in the years ahead,” he said.

Jus­tice Hen­der­son, who worked along­side Boodoos­ingh in the DPP’s Of­fice be­tween 1994 and 2001, was the first to wel­come him.

“What stood out for those of us who knew Ron­nie—as we called him in those days—was his strong work eth­ic, his schol­ar­ship, hu­mil­i­ty, and un­ques­tioned in­tegri­ty. It’s easy to trace his tra­jec­to­ry to Chief Jus­tice through those four ba­sic qual­i­ties,” Hen­der­son said.

Jus­tice Rahim de­scribed Boodoos­ingh as a judge of bal­ance, fore­sight, and fair­ness, de­vot­ed sole­ly to pub­lic ser­vice.

“His sole mo­tive has been ser­vice to his beloved Trinidad and To­ba­go. He is the quin­tes­sen­tial judge, guid­ing lawyers in and out of court, shap­ing the minds of gen­er­a­tions of young lawyers and law stu­dents,” Rahim said.

He added that Boodoos­ingh’s de­lib­er­a­tions are marked by care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion.

“He is of­ten the bear­er of light through the dark tun­nel of de­ci­sion-mak­ing,” Rahim not­ed. “He will bring sta­bil­i­ty, fair­ness, ef­fi­cien­cy, re­newed in­de­pen­dence, and con­fi­dence to the third arm of the State. To­day, a new dawn aris­es for the Ju­di­cia­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Deputy DPP Sub­ri­na Doughdeen-Jaglal, speak­ing on be­half of the DPP, said her of­fice looks for­ward to con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion and build­ing on the foun­da­tion laid by for­mer Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie.

Pa­tri­cia Dindyal, of the As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers, and Anil Ma­haraj, rep­re­sent­ing LATT, al­so praised Boodoos­ingh’s pro­fes­sion­al­ism and ded­i­ca­tion to men­tor­ship.

Ravi Ra­j­coomar, SC, who spoke for the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion, said the na­tion was right to place its trust in Boodoos­ingh, de­scrib­ing him as a man of “ded­i­ca­tion, in­tegri­ty, ex­em­plary ser­vice, and fierce ju­di­cial in­de­pen­dence.”

He was al­so com­mend­ed by Se­nior Coun­sels Ra­jiv Per­sad and John Heath, as well as at­tor­neys De­nesh Ram­bal­ly, Farai Hove Ma­sai­sai, and Act­ing Reg­is­trar Kim­ber­ly Prescott.

In his first act as Chief Jus­tice, Boodoos­ingh or­dered the restart of an ap­peal that had been left pend­ing fol­low­ing the sud­den res­ig­na­tion of for­mer Chief Jus­tice Archie. The case, which had last been heard by Archie, Boodoos­ingh, and Jus­tice James Aboud, will now be re­as­signed.

Boodoos­ingh said Jus­tice Rahim would lead the process of ap­point­ing a new pan­el of judges and set­ting a new date for the hear­ing.

“The mat­ter will be re­as­signed soon,” he said.