Derek Achong

High Court Judge James Aboud has been pro­mot­ed to the Court of Ap­peal.

The Ju­di­cia­ry an­nounced Aboud’s el­e­va­tion in a press re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day. 

Aboud ob­tained a de­gree in Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture from the Uni­ver­si­ty of West­ern On­tario and a post-grad­u­ate diplo­ma in In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) be­fore pur­su­ing a de­gree in law. 

He was even­tu­al­ly called to the bar in T&T and Eng­land and Wales in 1984.

Be­tween 1984 and 2006, Aboud was in pri­vate prac­tice and worked un­der both Trevor Lee, SC and Fyard Ho­sein, SC, where he spe­cialised in wills and trusts, pub­lic law, ad­mi­ral­ty, com­mer­cial and land law. 

Dur­ing his time in pri­vate prac­tice, Aboud al­so served on the board of Na­tion­al Flour Mills and as com­mis­sion­er of the then-Pub­lic Util­i­ties Com­mis­sion, which heard con­test­ed ap­pli­ca­tions against rate in­creas­es. 

He al­so served as hon­orary trea­sur­er of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion be­tween 1994 and 2003 and sat on its Dis­ci­pli­nary Coun­cil. 

From Jan­u­ary 2006 to De­cem­ber 2007, Aboud served as an act­ing High Court Judge in the San Fer­nan­do High Court and worked on clear­ing the court’s back­log at the time. 

“He got a no­to­ri­ous rep­u­ta­tion in San Fer­nan­do for sit­ting late in­to evenings-once un­til 7 pm on a Fri­day-in or­der to com­plete the many mat­ters that had be­come in­ac­tive,” the re­lease said.