Senior Counsel appointments correct abnormal situation, Granger says
– to be done annually
It is a travesty that during Guyana’s 50 years of independence, no woman lawyer was ever named a Senior Counsel (SC), President David Granger said yesterday, moments after presenting Instruments of Appoint-ment to eight of the nine legal practitioners, who he recently elevated to this status.
On New Year’s Eve, Granger made public a list of new SC, including three women. The last batch of appointments were made 20 years ago in 1996, but the honour will now be given every year.
Those receiving their official appointments yesterday were Neil Aubrey Boston, Charles John Ethelwood Fung-A-Fat, Alison Roxane McLean George-Wiltshire, Clifton Mortimer Llewellyn John, Rafiq Turhan Khan, Vidyanand Persaud, Rosalie Althea Robertson and Attorney General Basil Williams. The ceremony was held at State House. Absent was retired judge Claudette Margot Cecile Singh who is currently abroad.
The President said he could find no reason why “… since independence we couldn’t find a qualified woman attorney to grant the Senior Counsel to.” He was responding specifically to public comments about George-Wiltshire, who is a sitting judge.
Former AG Anil Nandlall in the hours after Granger’s announcement had said that this particular appointment “runs contrary to every canon of practice and precedent which dictate that Senior Counsel must be practising lawyers. For this reason the Chief Justice of Trinidad and Tobago Ivor Archie was forced to relinquish his appointment as Senior Counsel because he was a judge and not a practising lawyer when he was appointed. Kamla PersadBissessar was forced to do likewise because when she was appointed Senior Counsel, she was the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.”
He stated too that Justice Wendell Kangaloo of Trinidad was a sitting judge when he appointed SC and he refused the appointment.
But Granger noted that in the case of Justice George-Wilshire, she had served for several years in the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions and were this “a normal jurisdiction during those years she would have had the SC long ago.” He called the non-elevation of such a person with her level of qualifications a “travesty.”
He added, “Similarly Justice Claudette Singh did serve as Solicitor General and in normal jurisdictions these were qualifications that would have enabled them to earn that award.” He stressed that what he had done was to correct an “abnormal” situation.
Justice GeorgeWiltshire, who was admitted to the Bar in October 1990, has served as a Senior State Counsel, Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions and Director of Public Prosecutions.
Shortly after the Instruments were handed out, Granger told the gathering which consisted of senior members of the judiciary, Senior Counsel Charles Ramson Snr and Bernard De Santos, relatives and friends of the newly appointed SC and government officials that the elevation to this status is a symbol of nationhood and an important personal obligation.
“It promotes a sense of national identity by defining who we are. It celebrates the values for which we stand. It is a force of integration which identifies us as a nation of ideals. It is not perfunctory or ornamental,” he said.
The elevation is a mark of respect, of recognition and of reward for the accomplishments of those who have given, and who continue to give, selfless service to our nation, he said. He informed that the average individual service was 37½ years and the accumulated service is 338 years.
“You embody a massive amount of legal education and experience. You are exemplars of a fine tradition of an honourable and ancient profession,” he said adding that it was his duty as President to pay respect to those to whom respect was due. “I am a trustee of the traditions which sustain society,” he said.
He said too that it was his obligation, not an option, to respect the national system of honours and that failure to confer these awards, “whether the result of caprice or malice, would constitute a dereliction of duty on my part, the debasement of our identity of nationhood and an affront to our citizens.”
Regularity
He stated that he will with regularity and consistency, recognize and reward the work of deserving citizens by conferring honours on the basis of merit. He then announced that SC elevations will be done annually and this was met with applause.
Granger stressed that the elevation reflects ambitions and aspirations to