Sascha Wilson
Senior Reporter
sascha.wilson@guardian.co.tt
A senior ordinary member of the Council of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago (LATT) says comments by the association president on replacing the Privy Council as the country’s highest appellate court with the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) were not sanctioned by the membership.
Saira Lakhan, who is also president of the Assembly of Southern Lawyers (ASL), issued a statement yesterday in response to comments by LATT president Lynette Seebaran-Suite SC in a published report. If true, she said, the president’s comments were extremely unfortunate as they “may not be reflective of the general membership of the organisation”.
Lakhan said, “Her statements were not endorsed nor sanctioned by the council nor the membership of the LATT.”
She added that on July 10, 2015, when Attorney General Reginald Armourer SC, was the association president, a Special General Meeting (SGM) was called at the Convocation Hall, Hall of Justice to discuss this issue, but a motion to adjourn the meeting was passed and deliberation was adjourned until the new law term began to allow for information to be distributed to the membership.
Following the adjournment, Lakhan said, information was sent regarding arguments for and against replacing the Privy Council with the CCJ. A symposium was also held on February 26, 2016, at the Convocation Hall with 65 attendees including the Chief Justice and the Director of Public Prosecutions.
She added, “Almost nine years have since elapsed, and LATT is yet to reconvene the adjourned SGM despite the membership being provided with a plethora of material and information.”
She explained that LATT’s general membership was invited on March 23 to submit suggestions to the National Advisory Committee on Constitutional Reform on matters which require constitutional reform.
“Several members responded to LATT and their views on the issue of the abolishment of the UKPC were put forward. Some of the members of LATT have expressed the view that the UKPC should remain until a decision is made by the people of Trinidad and Tobago. Indeed, many of the leaders of the Bar in Trinidad and Tobago have publicly expressed this view over the years. Be that as it may, it is clear that there is a need for a consensus on this position from LATT’s general membership.”
Lakhan said the issue remains a live one and has to be considered and voted on by the membership.
She called on the LATT council to promptly reconvene the Special General Meeting to address the issue of whether this country should adopt the CCJ as its final appellate court.
In an immediate response, LATT president Seebaran-Suite said there is not a scientific sense of what the profession’s response is to the abolition of the Privy Council. But she said there has been an outpouring of support for the abolition of the Privy Council on the part of many senior members of the profession and civil society generally, who have spoken out on the occasion of the death of former CJ and CCJ president Michael de la Bastide.
She added, “The last position of the Law Council on this issue before we were overtaken by COVID was that the association would embark on a sensitisation process on the pros and cons of abolition of the PC. In my view that’s the course we should be embarking on at this time.”