In the award of “silk”, it seems that all attorneys and most politicians agree that the existing process needs to be changed. At the same time, most attorneys and all politicians have refused to take action on this issue. This year, three members of the ruling regime were made senior counsel: Government Ministers Faris Al-Rawi and Stuart Young and Government MP Keith Scotland.
Last year, newly appointed President Christine Kangaloo handed out the award to her husband, Kerwyn Garcia, and her brother, Colin Kangaloo. In 2011, then-prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and then-attorney general Anand Ramlogan became Senior Counsel. Such choices, deserved or not, inevitably lower the status of silk.
As the head of the Assembly of Southern Lawyers (ASL), Saira Lakhan noted in a statement yesterday, “The current system allows for dubious aspersions to be cast by the public on award of senior counsel being made based on nepotism, political patronage and political bias...
” The ASL has called for an independent committee to be set up to recommend attorneys for senior counsel status. This suggestion is not new. In 2015, the Law Association produced a report recommending an independent panel comprising the Chief Justice, the Attorney General, judges, and three senior counsel.
In our opinion, while such a panel would reduce the perception of bias, it would not remove it. In a small society like ours, confining the decision to legal officials would still leave the process open t.