Are females taking over the judiciary?

Tue, Jun 26. 2012

Editor: It seems as if females are taking over the top positions in the judiciary in the region.

Reports state that Janice M. Pereira has been approved as Chief Justice of the Eastern Caribbean by the Heads of Government at the recently concluded meeting at Buccament Bay in St Vincent and the Grenadines.{{more}}

Pereira, who was known as Janice George Creque, is from Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands and was a partner of the law firm of Farara George Creque and Kerins in Tortola before she was appointed a High Court Judge of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC). She was elevated shortly to the Court of Appeal. She replaces Nevisian Sir Hugh Rawlins, who leaves the judiciary on August 1.

Both Sir Hugh and his successor hail from comparatively small islands in the region, with populations of less than 10,000.

There are nine circuits of the ECSC: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Kitts/Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines

Pereira will join Jamaican Zeila Mc Calla, Chief Justice of Jamaica, as the two sitting female Chief Justices in the region, but Bahamian Dame Joan Augusta Sawyer served both as Chief Justice and President of the Court of Appeal in her country and over in Bermuda Norma Wade Miller acted as Head of the Judiciary on several occasions. Desiree Bernard, who is the only female judge in the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), was the first female to be appointed Chief Justice of the region. She was appointed Chief Justice of Guyana in 1996 and Chancellor of the Judiciary in 2001.

Turks and Caicos has unprecedently appointed two female judges: Jamaicans Joan Joyner, and Margaret Ramsay-Hale,

Perhaps I should point out most of the Heads of Judiciary were educated by the Caribbean Council of Legal Education, including Trinidad and Tobago’s Ivor Archie, Carl Singh of Guyana, Cayman Islands’ Anthony Smellie, a Jamaican by birth, Belize’s Guyana born Kenneth Benjamin, as well as Sir Hugh and his successor Janice Pereira.

Three Prime Ministers are also West Indian trained lawyers: Dean Barrow of Belize, Grenada’s Tillman Thomas and Kamla Persad Bissessar of Trinidad and Tobago. St Vincent and the Grenadines’ Prime Minister, Dr Ralph Gonsalves was also educated at UWI in political science, and studied law in the United Kingdom.

Oscar Ramjeet