Self-appointments as Senior Counsel: How it go look?
The Prime Minister's first case as Senior Counsel will be to provide the evidence of her qualifications for that appointment.
Overshadowing these Senior Counsel appointments is a question calypsonian Ronnie McIntosh once asked: How it go look? Those who see no problem with the PM's name topping the list of 16 new Senior Counsel must convince the country that this is not another example of abuse of office and questionable judgment. In addition the Chief Justice must re-examine the implications of sitting judges being offered the appointment of Senior Counsel in a politically-controlled process, mindful that judges may return to private practice and silk is an opportunity to earn fees on a much higher scale.
To any mildly knowledgeable person the handling of these Senior Counsel appointments is disreputable. When you combine the PM's and AG's self-appointment to Senior Counsel and a quixotic New Year's message in which the PM decries corruption and the perception of it, you get the feeling that delusion has made its way to the top. When the PM promises to "deal squarely with any corruption which surfaces" in her Government then you naturally question her failure to handle corruption allegations within the Government decisively, Mary King-style.
And when you consider the self-dealing, nepotism and conflicts of interest involved in the appointment of the top two members of Government to the Senior Counsel position, you must reject the PM's New Year's anti-corruption posture as absurd rhetoric. After all, self-dealing, nepotism and conflicts of interest are the basic ingredients of corruption.
The biggest backlash is the uneasiness in the judiciary created by the
decision to appoint sitting judges Senior Counsel, not because any lack
merit but for the angst amongst those judges who have not been appointed
as to the reasons some will go forward and others will not. The
landmine planted in the judiciary is the question of how judges will or
will not gain a Senior Counsel appointment once those appointments are
politically controlled. Beyond the PM's and AG's self-dealing, when some
judges get silk and others don't, how it go look?
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| Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar |
Overshadowing these Senior Counsel appointments is a question calypsonian Ronnie McIntosh once asked: How it go look? Those who see no problem with the PM's name topping the list of 16 new Senior Counsel must convince the country that this is not another example of abuse of office and questionable judgment. In addition the Chief Justice must re-examine the implications of sitting judges being offered the appointment of Senior Counsel in a politically-controlled process, mindful that judges may return to private practice and silk is an opportunity to earn fees on a much higher scale.
To any mildly knowledgeable person the handling of these Senior Counsel appointments is disreputable. When you combine the PM's and AG's self-appointment to Senior Counsel and a quixotic New Year's message in which the PM decries corruption and the perception of it, you get the feeling that delusion has made its way to the top. When the PM promises to "deal squarely with any corruption which surfaces" in her Government then you naturally question her failure to handle corruption allegations within the Government decisively, Mary King-style.
And when you consider the self-dealing, nepotism and conflicts of interest involved in the appointment of the top two members of Government to the Senior Counsel position, you must reject the PM's New Year's anti-corruption posture as absurd rhetoric. After all, self-dealing, nepotism and conflicts of interest are the basic ingredients of corruption.
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