DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Less than 24 hours af­ter Ivor Archie an­nounced his in­ten­tion to re­tire as Chief Jus­tice, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Ju­di­cia­ry wel­comed for­mer ap­pel­late judge Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh to the po­si­tion.

Boodoos­ingh was sworn in as the coun­try’s ninth Chief Jus­tice at Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s, yes­ter­day.

The brief cer­e­mo­ny was at­tend­ed by the out­go­ing Archie, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, Chief of De­fence Staff Don Po­lo and Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin.

In his maid­en ad­dress, Boodoos­ingh re­as­sured the na­tion of his com­mit­ment to serve with hu­mil­i­ty and dili­gence.

“I wish to give you my com­mit­ment of hard work, of ded­i­ca­tion to du­ty and that through it all I will try to walk humbly,” he said.

On­ly hours in­to the job, he was al­ready look­ing ahead, re­flect­ing on lega­cy and con­ti­nu­ity with­in the Ju­di­cia­ry.

“I will at­tempt to build on the plat­form of the pre­vi­ous chief jus­tices and the chief jus­tices who have gone be­fore me to en­sure that when it is time to move on, that I too, like Chief Jus­tice Archie, would leave the Ju­di­cia­ry in a bet­ter place.”

Boodoos­ingh thanked his fam­i­ly, ac­knowl­edg­ing the per­son­al sac­ri­fices that come with such a high-pro­file ap­point­ment.

“They are the most im­por­tant as­pect of my life, and they con­tribute to any good qual­i­ties that I may have. They make me a bet­ter per­son and I wish to as­sure them that I will, in ac­cept­ing this of­fice, en­sure that my re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to them are nev­er want­i­ng.”

He al­so paid trib­ute to Archie’s “sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion” to the Ju­di­cia­ry, cit­ing the schol­ar­ship of his judg­ments and his lead­er­ship dur­ing a pe­ri­od of tran­si­tion and re­form.

Act­ing Pres­i­dent Wade Mark con­grat­u­lat­ed Boodoos­ingh on his ap­point­ment, de­scrib­ing it as a re­flec­tion of his in­tegri­ty, ded­i­ca­tion, and long ser­vice to the na­tion. He al­so praised Archie for his near­ly two decades at the helm, call­ing his tenure an “ex­tra­or­di­nary con­tri­bu­tion” that left an in­deli­ble mark on the Ju­di­cia­ry.

Archie, the longest-serv­ing chief jus­tice in T&T’s his­to­ry, of­fi­cial­ly demit­ted of­fice yes­ter­day, af­ter more than 17 years. His re­tire­ment was first hint­ed at dur­ing the open­ing of the new law term on Sep­tem­ber 16.

Out­side Pres­i­dent’s House, re­porters wait­ed in pour­ing rain to speak with both the in­com­ing and out­go­ing chief jus­tices, as well as gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives, but none stopped to give in­ter­views. Of­fi­cial ve­hi­cles passed with­out stop­ping, while the CJ was be­lieved to have ex­it­ed through an­oth­er side of the com­pound.

DI­VERSE CA­REER

A state­ment from the Ju­di­cia­ry de­scribed Boodoos­ingh as a ju­rist of “ex­cep­tion­al dis­tinc­tion,” whose ca­reer re­flects “un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion to fair­ness, trans­paren­cy, and op­er­a­tional ex­cel­lence.”

Boodoos­ingh, an ho­n­ours grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and Sir Hugh Wood­ing Law School, was ad­mit­ted to le­gal prac­tice in 1992. He lec­tured at the Hugh Wood­ing Law School for more than two decades and served as course di­rec­tor since 2001, while main­tain­ing a pri­vate prac­tice.

He pre­vi­ous­ly held po­si­tions in the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, was a mem­ber of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion’s Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee and Na­tion­al Co-or­di­na­tor of the Ac­cess to Jus­tice Project un­der the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Com­mon­wealth Caribbean Bar As­so­ci­a­tions. Ap­point­ed a puisne judge in 2007, he presided in the civ­il and crim­i­nal di­vi­sions be­fore be­ing el­e­vat­ed to the Court of Ap­peal in 2020. Boodoos­ingh has al­so au­thored sev­er­al pub­li­ca­tions, in­clud­ing The Com­plete Ad­vo­cate, Ad­vo­ca­cy in Point Form.

He holds a Mas­ter of Laws in In­ter­na­tion­al Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don and is cer­ti­fied as a Ju­di­cial Ed­u­ca­tion Train­er, Ad­vo­ca­cy Train­er, and Adult Ed­u­ca­tion Train­er.

RE­AC­TION TO ARCHIE’S DE­PAR­TURE

Fol­low­ing Boodoos­ingh’s ap­point­ment, Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad, who was among those tipped for the po­si­tion, said he was not dis­ap­point­ed.

Speak­ing with re­porters at a Di­vali func­tion at The Meena House in Port-of-Spain, Seep­er­sad said, “One can nev­er be dis­ap­point­ed when one does not con­trol a sit­u­a­tion such as this, where ap­point­ments are to be of­fered. But it al­ways serves as a sign of en­cour­age­ment and in­spi­ra­tion if cit­i­zens feel that judges are do­ing a good job or that they are peo­ple of in­tegri­ty in whom the sa­cred trust and oblig­a­tion of high­er pub­lic ser­vice could be vest­ed.”

He de­scribed Boodoos­ingh’s ap­point­ment as “a new dawn.”

“It is some­what sym­bol­ic that it hap­pens to co­in­cide with the Di­vali sea­son be­cause as a ju­di­cial of­fi­cer, it is in­deed a ray of light, a light which brings hope for ef­fec­tive ad­min­is­tra­tion, a light which sig­nals that change will come, that the in­ter­est of cit­i­zens will be pri­ori­tised, and that oaths of of­fice, and in par­tic­u­lar the oath of the Of­fice of Chief Jus­tice, would form and fash­ion the con­duct of a ser­vant leader who has the in­ter­est of the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go as his pri­or­i­ty and who would en­sure that there is ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy with re­spect to the op­er­a­tions of the Ju­di­cia­ry.”

He said Boodoos­ingh is a role mod­el and a de­cent hu­man be­ing who pri­ori­tis­es fam­i­ly and can in­spire and en­cour­age the nec­es­sary work eth­ic and lifestyle de­ci­sions among his sub­or­di­nates.

Ahead of the swear­ing-in, Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Is­rael Khan, SC, re­act­ed to Archie’s res­ig­na­tion, ex­press­ing sur­prise at Gov­ern­ment’s pub­lic praise of the out­go­ing chief jus­tice.

“I am very much flab­ber­gast­ed that the Hon. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC, on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment, praised CJ Archie for what she de­scribed as his al­most 18 years of dis­tin­guished ser­vice to our na­tion and thanked him for his con­tri­bu­tion to na­tion­al and pub­lic ser­vice.

“It is my con­sid­ered opin­ion that the Hon. Prime Min­is­ter was com­pelled to be states­man-like and diplo­mat­ic and thus held her tongue in cheek with her prais­es for CJ Archie.”

He added that he would not com­ment fur­ther on Archie’s tenure, say­ing, “On CJ Archie’s re­tire­ment and the sub­se­quent praise of him by our es­teemed Prime Min­is­ter I choose to keep ‘SI­LENCE’.”

Ef­forts to reach Khan fol­low­ing Boodoos­ingh’s swear­ing-in were un­suc­cess­ful.