Pa­tri­ot­ic Front po­lit­i­cal leader Mikela Pan­day has con­demned the se­cre­tive process sur­round­ing the award of se­nior coun­sel in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Pan­day linked the is­sue to a broad­er pat­tern of lack of “ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, and mer­i­toc­ra­cy that breeds wide­spread dis­trust in the na­tion’s in­sti­tu­tions.”

She not­ed that while the gen­er­al pub­lic might not typ­i­cal­ly fo­cus on the award of “silk”—a pres­ti­gious ti­tle grant­ed to lawyers— the re­cent head­lines have brought to light a glar­ing hypocrisy in its al­lo­ca­tion, a tra­di­tion dat­ing back to colo­nial times.

“The rea­son is the bla­tant, open hypocrisy that is re­peat­ed in the award of ‘silk’, re­gard­less of which of the two par­ties are in pow­er,” Pan­day re­marked. “That is not to say some are not de­serv­ing, and as an at­tor­ney, I can say that cer­tain per­sons who were ap­point­ed cer­tain­ly mer­it­ed it. It sim­ply reeks of dis­trust with­out an in­de­pen­dent se­lec­tion pan­el.”

Pan­day’s cri­tique ex­tend­ed be­yond the is­sue of se­nior coun­sel to what she de­scribed as an in­dict­ment on both the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion. She said nei­ther side shows gen­uine in­ter­est in fos­ter­ing a cul­ture of trans­paren­cy.

“What is clear is that nei­ther the Gov­ern­ment nor the Op­po­si­tion is in­ter­est­ed in trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty, or mer­i­toc­ra­cy, and they are hap­py for the cur­rent state of af­fairs to con­tin­ue with­out change,” Pan­day as­sert­ed.

Mean­while, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) has re­it­er­at­ed its call for the re­form of the se­lec­tion and ap­point­ment process of se­nior coun­sel.

While the as­so­ci­a­tion con­grat­u­lat­ed new­ly ad­mit­ted mem­bers of the In­ner Bar, it stressed the need for a trans­par­ent and in­de­pen­dent sys­tem, free from po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence and ex­ec­u­tive con­trol.

A re­lease from LATT yes­ter­day stat­ed that the ap­point­ment of se­nior coun­sel was at the dis­cre­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter, a process, it said, was root­ed in a his­tor­i­cal frame­work es­tab­lished in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gazette of Feb­ru­ary 15, 1964.

“This pro­ce­dure man­dates that ap­pli­ca­tions be sub­mit­ted to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, who con­sults with the Chief Jus­tice and oth­ers at his dis­cre­tion, be­fore mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions to the Prime Min­is­ter. The Prime Min­is­ter then ad­vis­es the Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al on the ap­point­ments,” LATT ex­plained.

It said in 1977, cri­te­ria for ap­pli­cants were pub­lished, em­pha­sis­ing pro­fes­sion­al em­i­nence, in­tel­lec­tu­al abil­i­ty, ad­vo­ca­cy skills, and in­tegri­ty.

“De­spite these guide­lines, the ul­ti­mate de­ci­sion re­mains with the Prime Min­is­ter, rais­ing con­cerns about po­ten­tial po­lit­i­cal bias and a lack of struc­tured in­ter­vals for ap­pli­ca­tions and ap­point­ments,” LATT said.

The LATT said it has been ad­vo­cat­ing for change for years, propos­ing a more ac­count­able sys­tem.

In 2015, the as­so­ci­a­tion adopt­ed the Re­port of the 29th Coun­cil on the Ap­point­ment of Se­nior Coun­sel, which rec­om­mends that the pres­i­dent make ap­point­ments based on an in­de­pen­dent pan­el’s rec­om­men­da­tions.

LATT ex­plained that this pan­el would in­clude the chief jus­tice, the at­tor­ney gen­er­al, three judges of the Supreme Court and three se­nior coun­sel ap­point­ed by the as­so­ci­a­tion.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion said it was once again call­ing for the adop­tion of its 2015 rec­om­men­da­tions to en­sure a trans­par­ent, in­de­pen­dent, and reg­u­larised ap­point­ment process for se­nior coun­sel. It said this would move the coun­try away from out­dat­ed colo­nial prac­tices and align with in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.

Ear­li­er this week, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed, the As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers and Is­rael Khan, SC, al­so called for a com­pre­hen­sive over­haul of the process for award­ing “silk.”