Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

As ques­tions con­tin­ue to loom over this year’s se­lec­tion of at­tor­neys for the ti­tle of “silk,” for­mer sen­ate pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith has joined the list of those call­ing for a re­vamp­ing of the process.

Ad­dress­ing the con­tro­ver­sy yes­ter­day, he said its ob­scu­ri­ty over the years has stained the un­der­tak­ing.

“The process has be­come com­pro­mised and there­fore, hence­forth, may be seen as less valu­able. I agree it is now im­per­a­tive that the sys­tem for ap­point­ment to ‘silk’ needs to be re­vamped so that it is seen as trans­par­ent and de­void of po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence. For­tu­nate­ly, those of us who are not lit­i­ga­tors are not neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed, re­ly­ing as we al­ways have on in­ter­na­tion­al re­views and as­sess­ments by bod­ies such as Cham­bers Glob­al.”

Dur­ing Mon­day’s dis­tri­b­u­tion of in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment to the at­tor­neys con­ferred with the ti­tle at the Pres­i­dent’s House, Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi and Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land agreed there is room for the process to be re­formed.

A to­tal of 16 at­tor­neys were con­ferred “silk” this year.

Ac­cord­ing to the law, at­tor­neys are in­vit­ed to sub­mit their names for the ho­n­our, the list is then re­viewed by the at­tor­ney gen­er­al and oth­er stake­hold­ers in the field, be­fore be­ing sent to the prime min­is­ter. The prime min­is­ter then pro­vides the pres­i­dent with a fi­nal list of the can­di­dates cho­sen to be award­ed. Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath yes­ter­day said the con­cerns raised by at­tor­ney and for­mer house speak­er Nizam Mo­hammed, that there may have been in­ter­fer­ence which led to his name be­ing re­moved from the list, should not be al­lowed to linger giv­en the po­lit­i­cal as­pects of the process.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go should try and get away hav­ing po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in every sort of ac­tiv­i­ty which will now in­flu­ence the fu­ture ad­vance­ment and de­vel­op­ment in var­i­ous ar­eas out­side of the pol­i­tics.”

For­mer As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers pres­i­dent Michael Rooplal al­so said there is ur­gent need for re­form of the ap­point­ment process of se­nior coun­sel. He said over a decade af­ter a com­mit­tee pre­sent­ed the “Silk Re­port,” there has been no im­ple­men­ta­tion of rec­om­men­da­tions, which in­clud­ed the role of an in­de­pen­dent pan­el in el­e­vat­ing at­tor­neys to “silk.”

“It is ob­jec­tion­able in prin­ci­ple for the ex­ec­u­tive or head of the ex­ec­u­tive arm of the gov­ern­ment, the prime min­is­ter, to play any role in the se­lec­tion of at­tor­neys-at-law to be ap­point­ed to the rank of Se­nior Coun­sel by the pres­i­dent,” Rooplal said.

“This prac­tice must be dis­con­tin­ued forth­with; the se­lec­tion of at­tor­neys to be el­e­vat­ed to the rank of ‘silk’ must be con­duct­ed by an in­de­pen­dent pan­el, so com­prised and main­tained so as to be and re­main en­tire­ly in­de­pen­dent of any in­flu­ence from the ex­ec­u­tive arm of gov­ern­ment.”

Mean­while, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young re­ceived his in­stru­ment of ap­point­ment yes­ter­day. Young was out of the coun­try when Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo con­ferred the ma­jor­i­ty of at­tor­neys award­ed this year with their in­stru­ments on Mon­day.