Is­rael B Ra­jah-Khan SC

The Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion wel­comes and ap­plauds the ap­point­ment of Jus­tice of Ap­peal Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh as the ninth Chief Jus­tice of the Re­pub­lic of T&T.

The CBA un­hesi­tant­ly agrees with the state­ment from the Ju­di­cia­ry, which de­scribed him as a ju­rist of “ex­cep­tion­al dis­tinc­tion,” whose ca­reer re­flects “un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion to fair­ness, trans­paren­cy and op­er­a­tional ex­cel­lence.”

And for the doubt­ing Thomases of T&T and the few mis­chie­vous de­trac­tors who are a bit un­easy about the ap­point­ment of Boodoos­ingh as Chief Jus­tice, the CBA wish­es to en­dorse for pos­ter­i­ty the Ju­di­cia­ry’s state­ment, which was of­fi­cial­ly re­leased up­on his swear­ing in as CJ.

It stat­ed:

“Boodoos­ingh, as ho­n­ours grad­u­ate of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and Sir Hugh Wood­ing Law School, was ad­mit­ted to le­gal prac­tice in 1992. He lec­tured at the Hugh Wood­ing Law School for more than two decades and served as course di­rec­tor since 2001, while main­tain­ing a pri­vate prac­tice.

He pre­vi­ous­ly held po­si­tions in the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, was a mem­ber of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion’s Dis­ci­pli­nary Com­mit­tee and Na­tion­al Co­or­di­na­tor of the Ac­cess to Jus­tice Project un­der the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Com­mon­wealth Caribbean Bar As­so­ci­a­tion. Ap­point­ed a pu­sine judge in 2007, he presided in the civ­il and crim­i­nal di­vi­sions be­fore be­ing el­e­vat­ed to the Court of Ap­peal in 2020. Boodoos­ingh has al­so au­tho­rised sev­er­al pub­li­ca­tions, in­clud­ing the Com­plete Ad­vo­cate, Ad­vo­ca­cy in Point Form.

He holds a Mas­ter of Laws in In­ter­na­tion­al Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don and is cer­ti­fied as a Ju­di­cial Ed­u­ca­tion Train­er, Ad­vo­ca­cy Train­er, and Adult Ed­u­ca­tion Train­er.”

But the most dis­tin­guish­ing as­pect of CJ Boodoos­ingh’s per­son­al­i­ty is his hon­est and fierce­ly in­de­pen­dent per­for­mance of his du­ty as a judge when called up­on.

The coun­try would re­call the im­broglio in­volv­ing for­mer Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, who faced al­le­ga­tions for mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.

The judges were fierce­ly di­vid­ed on whether Archie should demit of­fice as a re­sult of his bold­faced stand to re­main silent and thus not of­fer an ex­pla­na­tion in re­la­tion to the al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct in pub­lic of­fice in his ca­pac­i­ty as Chief Jus­tice. But very few of the judges spoke up. Jus­tice Boodoos­ingh re­fused to be silent and open­ly stat­ed that CJ Archie must have of­fered an ex­pla­na­tion vis á vis the al­le­ga­tions of mis­be­hav­iour or demit of­fice as the Chief Jus­tice.

He for­mer­ly wrote and cir­cu­lat­ed to all the Judges in the coun­try the fol­low­ing: “I will not stand ac­cused of hav­ing been a part of the Ju­di­cia­ry and re­mained silent on the most sig­nif­i­cant threat to our in­sti­tu­tion for a long time…All is not well on Knox Street (Ju­di­cia­ry).”

Jus­tice Boodoos­ingh re­fused, un­like many of the judges, to take up a po­si­tion as a syco­phant and this au­gurs well for him in his new­ly mint­ed po­si­tion as Chief Jus­tice of the Re­pub­lic of T&T.