Derek Achong

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has sought to re­mind cit­i­zens that her of­fice does not se­lect at­tor­neys to be ap­point­ed as se­nior coun­sel. 

In a short speech af­ter con­fer­ring “silk” on 17 at­tor­neys, in­clud­ing her hus­band Ker­wyn Gar­cia and her broth­er Col­in Kan­ga­loo, dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at Pres­i­dent’s House in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo sought to out­line the pro­ce­dure for ap­point­ments. 

Un­der the pro­ce­dure, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al first in­vites se­nior at­tor­neys, who have dis­tin­guished them­selves in the pro­fes­sion, to ap­ply for the ho­n­our. 

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al then con­sults with the Chief Jus­tice and oth­er stake­hold­ers be­fore dis­cussing the ap­pli­ca­tions with the Prime Min­is­ter, who ad­vis­es the Pres­i­dent on who should be ap­point­ed. 

Yes­ter­day, Kan­ga­loo said, “At the end of the process, the Pres­i­dent—who­ev­er he or she may be— acts in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 80 Sub-sec­tion 1 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, and, on an oc­ca­sion like to­day, for­mal­ly con­fers se­nior coun­sel sta­tus to those up­on whom he or she has been ad­vised to do so.” 

Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo al­so sought to ad­vise the re­cip­i­ents of their new roles and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in the le­gal pro­fes­sion. 

“Like so many oth­er pro­fes­sions, the sus­tain­abil­i­ty and the ad­vance­ment of the le­gal pro­fes­sion de­pend on the lead­er­ship, men­tor­ship and ap­pren­tice­ship that are of­fered and pro­vid­ed by those whose in­duc­tion in­to the ranks of lead­er­ship we have wit­nessed to­day,” she said. 

How­ev­er, she did ad­vise them to savour the mo­ment, which would no doubt de­fine their ca­reers.  

“You have all worked ex­treme­ly hard, year af­ter year, in mat­ters and in cir­cum­stances that have chal­lenged and stretched you to the lim­its of your pro­fes­sion­al abil­i­ties, and to­day, your pro­fes­sion recog­nis­es and cel­e­brates your ef­forts,” the Pres­i­dent said. 

In ad­di­tion to Gar­cia and Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo’s broth­er, the oth­er re­cip­i­ents in­clud­ed In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira; An­gos­tu­ra Hold­ings Ltd chair­man Ter­rence Bharath; Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ings Ltd chair­man Michael Quam­i­na; Deputy Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Joan Hon­ore-Paul; Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) mem­ber Ra­jiv Per­sad; Ron­nie Bisses­sar; Rishi Dass; Ida Ever­s­ley; John Heath; Lar­ry Lal­la; Leslie-Ann Lucky-Sama­roo; Ja­son Mootoo; Ravi Ra­j­coomar; Dip­nar­ine Ram­per­sad; and Bernard Shep­herd. 

Speak­ing with me­dia per­son­nel af­ter the cer­e­mo­ny, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, SC, not­ed that the se­lec­tion pro­ce­dure ex­ist­ed be­fore this coun­try gained In­de­pen­dence in 1962. 

He claimed that af­ter re­ceiv­ing the ap­pli­ca­tions, he en­gaged in con­sul­ta­tions with Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie and the Law As­so­ci­a­tion be­fore mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley. He not­ed that re­cent­ly elect­ed Law As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Lynette See­baran-Suite re­cused her­self from the con­sul­ta­tion process, as she too ap­plied for the ho­n­our. 

See­baran-Suite was ex­pect­ed to re­ceive her in­stru­ment of ap­point­ment dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny yes­ter­day, but could not at­tend due to the re­cent death of her moth­er. A sep­a­rate cer­e­mo­ny will be held for See­baran-Suite at a lat­er date. 

“The Prime Min­is­ter, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and the Law As­so­ci­a­tion en­gaged in an ex­er­cise for a wide cross-sec­tion of mem­bers of the pro­fes­sion,” he said. 

Ar­mour al­so sought to ad­dress the fact that on­ly three to four of those se­lect­ed prac­tice crim­i­nal law, as he al­lud­ed that more ap­point­ments may be forth­com­ing. 

“Not all of the per­sons who would have been en­ti­tled were award­ed to­day. It is a work in progress,” the AG said. 

He al­so ac­knowl­edged that there have been re­peat­ed calls from with­in the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty for an over­haul of the se­lec­tion process, in­clud­ing when he served as Law As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent be­tween 2015 and 2017. 

“That is un­der re­view,” he said. 

In a brief in­ter­view af­ter re­ceiv­ing his in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment, Gar­cia echoed his wife’s sen­ti­ments as he sought to dis­pel neg­a­tive pub­lic dis­course over his and his broth­er-in-law’s ap­point­ments. 

“It makes no dif­fer­ence in this process who oc­cu­pies the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent. The dif­fer­ence is made ear­li­er in the process,” Gar­cia said. 

“There is al­ways pub­lic dis­course in T&T, which is to be en­cour­aged, but I think it is im­por­tant that one us­es the sur­geon’s scalpel rather than wields the butch­er’s axe. It is im­por­tant that one gen­er­ates more light than heat,” Gar­cia added. 

While he not­ed that it was pure­ly co­in­ci­den­tal that his wife held the of­fice when he was se­lect­ed, Gar­cia said he was hap­py she was able to share his spe­cial mo­ment with him. 

“That is a most hap­py ac­ci­dent of his­to­ry and I am hap­py to ben­e­fit from it,” Gar­cia said. 

He said he was al­so think­ing of ap­ply­ing in 2012 un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion but ul­ti­mate­ly felt he wasn’t ready at the time. How­ev­er, he said when the op­por­tu­ni­ty arose this time around, he spoke to his fam­i­ly and his men­tors with­in the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty and they were the ones who con­vinced him he should ap­ply.

Gar­cia said he was hum­bled by the ap­point­ment and looked for­ward to ful­fill­ing the as­so­ci­at­ed re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to the le­gal pro­fes­sion. 

“One feels en­tire­ly elat­ed that one’s pro­fes­sion has con­sid­ered that one is of sig­nif­i­cant cal­i­bre and ex­pe­ri­ence to be of­fered this sig­nal ho­n­our,” Gar­cia said. 

Guardian Me­dia re­quest­ed an in­ter­view with Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo’s broth­er but he po­lite­ly de­clined. 

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Is­rael Khan, SC, who has a pend­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al law­suit over the se­lec­tion pro­ce­dure, main­tained that it should be re­viewed to ex­clude the in­volve­ment of the Prime Min­is­ter. 

“All the lawyers who were giv­en silk, in­clud­ing my­self, were award­ed silk on the rec­om­men­da­tion of a Prime Min­is­ter. That ought not to be,” he said, as he sug­gest­ed that ap­pointees should be se­lect­ed by an in­de­pen­dent body chaired by the Chief Jus­tice and in­clud­ing se­nior judges. 

He not­ed that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley chal­lenged the set pro­ce­dure in 2012, when for­mer prime min­is­ter and cur­rent Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, SC, was con­ferred silk dur­ing her tenure. 

He al­so point­ed out that CJ Archie and Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo’s oth­er broth­er, Wen­dell, who served as an Ap­peal Court Judge be­fore he died in a car crash in 2013, were ap­point­ed as se­nior coun­sel along­side Per­sad-Bisses­sar but chose to re­turn the award due to pub­lic furore over the move. 

Khan not­ed that the ma­jor­i­ty of se­nior coun­sel prac­tice civ­il law and claimed the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem need­ed be­tween 10 to 12 more Se­nior Coun­sel to func­tion prop­er­ly. 

“A few years ago, I sent a list of lawyers who had the nec­es­sary abil­i­ty and in­tegri­ty. I do not know who from the crim­i­nal bar would have ap­plied this time,” he said. 

List of new Se­nior Coun­sel 

1. Ter­rence Bharath

2. Ron­nie Bisses­sar

3. Rishi Dass

4. Ida Ever­s­ley

5. Ker­wyn Gar­cia

6. John Heath

7. Joan Hon­ore-Paul

8. Col­in Kan­ga­loo

9. Lar­ry Lal­la

10. Leslie-Ann Lucky-Sama­roo

11. Ja­son Mootoo

12. Ra­jiv Per­sad

13. Michael Quam­i­na

14. Ravi Ra­j­coomar

15. Dip­nar­ine Ram­per­sad

16. Bernard Shep­herd

17. An­tho­ny Vieira

Cri­te­ria used to as­sess at­tor­neys for silk

• Pro­fes­sion­al em­i­nence and dis­tinc­tion, which es­tab­lish­es them as lead­ers of the pro­fes­sion.

• Sound in­tel­lec­tu­al abil­i­ty.

• Thor­ough, com­pre­hen­sive and up-to-date knowl­edge of law and prac­tice in the fields in which they prac­tise.

• Out­stand­ing abil­i­ty as an ad­vo­cate in the high­er courts.

• The high­est pro­fes­sion­al stand­ing, hav­ing gained the re­spect of the Bench and pro­fes­sion in ob­serv­ing the ad­vo­cate’s du­ty to the court and the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice while pre­sent­ing their clients’ cas­es and be­ing for­mi­da­ble, fair and ho­n­ourable as an op­po­nent.

• To­tal pro­fes­sion­al in­tegri­ty; ma­tu­ri­ty of judg­ment and bal­ance; and high-qual­i­ty prac­tice with at least ten years’ ex­pe­ri­ence.