RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh has promised that the “icon­ic Supreme Court build­ing in San Fer­nan­do” will be re­opened dur­ing his tenure.

Speak­ing at the As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers Christ­mas din­ner held at the Pointe-a-Pierre Golf Club on Sat­ur­day night, CJ Boodoos­ingh said the Ju­di­cia­ry in­tends to work with the au­thor­i­ties re­spon­si­ble for pub­lic fund­ing to re­store op­er­a­tions at the long-closed build­ing.

“We in the Ju­di­cia­ry in­tend to work along­side those who con­trol pub­lic funds to have that ‘icon­ic Supreme Court build­ing in San Fer­nan­do’ re­opened for busi­ness in the short­est pos­si­ble time,” he said.

Boodoos­ingh al­so ad­dressed con­cerns about the state of the le­gal sys­tem and per­cep­tions of the pro­fes­sion. He said lawyers and the Ju­di­cia­ry are some­times the tar­get of crit­i­cism and ac­knowl­edged that some of it is war­rant­ed. How­ev­er, he stressed that the courts con­tin­ue to play a cen­tral role in the coun­try.

“Many peo­ple knock us as lawyers, as le­gal pro­fes­sion­als, some­times jus­ti­fi­ably so,” he said. “But we as le­gal pro­fes­sion­als are crit­i­cal to the suc­cess of our democ­ra­cy, the de­fence of the rule of law, and the preser­va­tion of our val­ues as a peo­ple.”

The Chief Jus­tice spoke about his ear­ly con­nec­tion to San Fer­nan­do and the be­gin­ning of his le­gal train­ing. He said he had no links to the pro­fes­sion when he en­tered law school and on­ly found his way in­to the field through a chance in­tro­duc­tion.

He re­called his first ex­pe­ri­ences in court, which took place in the old San Fer­nan­do Supreme Court build­ing. He said those vis­its al­lowed him to ob­serve se­nior at­tor­neys at work and to un­der­stand the stan­dards ex­pect­ed of lawyers. Among the lawyers he saw in ac­tion was Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, pre­sent­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al cas­es and cross-ex­am­in­ing crim­i­nal cas­es.

Boodoos­ingh said those ear­ly ex­pe­ri­ences shaped his ca­reer and showed him how the pro­fes­sion can sup­port new en­trants.

He said his path lat­er took him to the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions af­ter an ear­ly ex­po­sure to crim­i­nal prac­tice. Al­though he was ad­vised against the move, it be­came a sig­nif­i­cant part of his ca­reer. He lat­er en­tered teach­ing at the Hugh Wood­ing Law School un­der the guid­ance of his men­tor, Jus­tice Annes­tine Sealey.

The Chief Jus­tice said the Ju­di­cia­ry’s lead­er­ship team in­tends to work with south­ern lawyers to ad­dress is­sues in­volv­ing ac­cess to court ser­vices in the re­gion.

“I hope to lead a Ju­di­cia­ry which sees the hear­ing and de­ter­mi­na­tion of cas­es with­in a rea­son­able time as our core func­tion and du­ty,” he said.

“To­geth­er, I hope, we will work to build the trust and con­fi­dence of our fel­low cit­i­zens in our ju­di­cial sys­tem,” he added.

Mean­while, the pres­i­dent of the As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers (ASL), Saira Lakhan, said the Chief Jus­tice’s record as a lec­tur­er and men­tor has in­flu­enced lawyers through­out the re­gion.

She said she still re­mem­bers his first class at the Hugh Wood­ing Law School. “My Lord told us the key to be­com­ing a great ad­vo­cate is prepa­ra­tion. At the time, it sound­ed sim­ple, but over the years, I re­alised it is the truest thing any­one could have told a young lawyer. Prepa­ra­tion is every­thing.”

Lakhan said many lawyers present were for­mer stu­dents of the Chief Jus­tice.

She said his ap­proach to lead­er­ship con­tin­ues to guide mem­bers of the pro­fes­sion. “What stands out most about our Chief Jus­tice is his hu­mil­i­ty. He has taught us that qui­et prepa­ra­tion and hu­mil­i­ty can car­ry you a long way.”

Lakhan said his ap­point­ment has brought re­newed con­fi­dence to the pro­fes­sion. “Your ap­point­ment as Chief Jus­tice has in it­self giv­en us all con­fi­dence that pos­i­tive change will be forth­com­ing soon,” she said. She not­ed that he re­cent­ly vis­it­ed the San Fer­nan­do High Court build­ing, re­flect­ing what she called “proac­tive lead­er­ship in ac­tion.”

She said the ASL would not present a list of re­quests but in­stead trust his lead­er­ship.

Lakhan added that the ASL is pre­pared to work with the Chief Jus­tice on ed­u­ca­tion, out­reach, and part­ner­ship to achieve “the fair, time­ly, and ac­ces­si­ble ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice.”