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Feb 13, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
You must admire a man who when called to serve his country, responds without hesitation. You must loathe a government that has to resort to asking a high judicial official to leave his job so as take up a position in the Cabinet.
I have never agreed with persons who have been members of the bench taking up positions within the Executive. I appreciate the acute shortage of skills in the country but I think that it sets a bad precedent for judicial officials to move into the government, regardless of whether this occurs before or after retirement.
I did not agree when Justice Keith Massiah became our Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs. I respect his scholarship and legal knowledge but I did not agree with that decision. I thought then that it set a bad precedent.
I also was not in agreement when the now Attorney General was appointed as a judge having previously served as Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs.
While he became a judge after he had left the government and was in private practice, I do not believe that a person should be made a judge, a short interlude after leaving the government. I do not blame the government for this. I blame whoever was responsible for the appointment, as it did not set the right precedent.
There is, of course, the practical matter of what the authorities should do in a situation where there are limited skills and not many suitably qualified persons to become judges.
In such a situation, should someone be denied being appointed a judge simply because that person has served in a political office before?
I think the answer is yes, except if a period of ten years has elapsed. The ideal thing would be to not have persons who have served in high political office become members of the judiciary.
But in small societies like Guyana this often presents practical problems. Perhaps we should have a situation whereby some time limits can be imposed, whereby a person who has served in high political office is prohibited from becoming a member of the bench until a period of ten years has elapsed.
Similarly, a high judicial official should not be allowed to take up an appointment within the Cabinet until a similar period has elapsed. I think that such a measure will allow for greater confidence in both government and the judiciary.
I have also never agreed fully with the convention that only Senior Counsel should be appointed Attorney General. Our own experience has taught us that we have excellent legal luminaries who have not yet been robed.
I was therefore disappointed that the government had to resort to asking a sitting judge to accept the position of Attorney General. While there is an acute shortage of talent within the PPP, there were clearly persons who were eligible for the job from within the PPP itself.
One such person was Mr. Anil Nandlall who this column once noted was one of the more brilliant and erudite legal minds in the country. I think he would have made an excellent Attorney General.
While Mr. Nandlall is not a Senior Counsel, I believe that he will eventually attain that standing because he is clearly a superior legal mind.
Another person who could have been considered was the Speaker of the National Assembly, Mr. Ralph Ramkarran. He is a senior counsel and someone whose appointment would have been respected by the Bar and the Bench alike.
The President could of course have looked beyond the boundaries of Guyana and found an eminent jurist to fill the shoes of the outgoing Attorney General. There are highly qualified and experienced Guyanese legal personalities outside of these borders who would have been suited to the position.
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