Fran­cis Joseph

A cri­sis was avert­ed at the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) yes­ter­day. State lawyers were plan­ning to stay away from court yes­ter­day, the first of­fi­cial day of the new law term. They were do­ing so in light of re­ports that Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning had ve­toed the ap­point­ment of deputy DPP Roger Gas­pard to act as DPP, af­ter the ap­point­ment of Car­la Brown-An­toine to the High Court Bench. As one state lawyer put it, "It was go­ing to be a silent protest, but it would have had the ef­fect that none of the crim­i­nal courts in the High Court could have done any­thing."

Gas­pard re­ceived a let­ter yes­ter­day morn­ing, ap­point­ing him to act as DPP. But the let­ter did not state how long he would act. Brown-An­toine act­ed as DPP for nine months af­ter she re­placed Ge­of­frey Hen­der­son, who was al­so el­e­vat­ed to the High Court. Fol­low­ing Gas­pard's ap­point­ment, state at­tor­neys went to court and it was busi­ness as usu­al. At Pres­i­dent's House, Brown-An­toine, An­dre Mon De­sir and Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh were sworn in by Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards as full-time judges. On Oc­to­ber 1, Gillian Lucky and Ra­jiv Per­sad will be sworn in as tem­po­rary judges. Boodoos­ingh was ad­mit­ted to the Bar in 1992. Be­fore en­ter­ing the Hugh Wood­ing Law School, he re­ceived his bach­e­lor of laws de­gree with sec­ond class ho­n­ours from the UWI Fac­ul­ty of Law at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, grad­u­at­ing in 1990.

He was award­ed the pres­ti­gious Joseph Archibald QC Award for Pub­lic In­ter­na­tion­al Law at UWI, and up­on his grad­u­a­tion from the Hugh Wood­ing Law School, he was an awardee of the Robert Math­ieu Prize for best per­for­mance in tri­al ad­vo­ca­cy, and the Book Spe­cial­ists Prize as most out­stand­ing all-round stu­dent. Boodoos­ingh had a short stint at the of­fice of DPP im­me­di­ate­ly up­on his grad­u­a­tion in 1992, and re­turned to that of­fice for some sev­en years, his last po­si­tion there be­ing a se­nior state pros­e­cu­tor. He had been serv­ing as a tem­po­rary judge of the High Court for the past two years. Mon De­sir joined the ju­di­cia­ry as an act­ing judge last year, af­ter serv­ing both in pri­vate prac­tice and with the State.

He spent the pre­vi­ous six years in the ser­vice of the gov­ern­ment of the Cay­man Is­lands, hold­ing po­si­tions as Se­nior Crown Coun­sel (Crim­i­nal), In­de­pen­dent Coun­sel to the Gov­er­nor, and Le­gal Coun­sel to the Cay­man Is­lands Mon­e­tary Au­thor­i­ty. Mon De­sir was ad­mit­ted to the Bar in 1993, hav­ing at­tained his bach­e­lor of laws (sec­ond class ho­n­ours) from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies. A na­tion­al schol­ar­ship win­ner from St Joseph's Con­vent, Port of Spain, Brown-An­toine stud­ied law at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, grad­u­at­ing with her LLB (sec­ond class ho­n­ours) in 1987, and at the Hugh Wood­ing Law School where she re­ceived her Le­gal Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate in 1989. Brown-An­toine's en­tire pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer from 1989 has been with the of­fice of DPP, be­gin­ning as a State Coun­sel, and ris­ing to the po­si­tion of Deputy Di­rec­tor in 2001, and act­ing on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions up to present­ly as Di­rec­tor.