The awarding of Senior Counsel should be abolished

Jan 07, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Burnham was an enigma. Despite his anti-colonial stance, he was inured to the conventions and traditions of the British monarchy.
When Guyana became Independent, Burnham retained many of the trappings of colonial rule, one of which was the practice of awarding silk or Senior Counsel status, to members of the legal profession. He himself was a Queen’s Counsel recipient.
He retained that elitist tradition even while telling the Guyanese people that Guyana was becoming an egalitarian society. He perpetuated this elitist practice in Guyana.
Members of the inner sanctum belong to an exclusive group within the legal profession. It is a sanctum which is not open to all. In fact, it has historically been reserved for the few.
The President of Guyana, David Granger, in defending his decision to award Senior Counsel has tried to drive home the point that no Senior Counsel were appointed over the past twenty years. He should make a count of the number of persons who were appointed in the 28 years his party was in power. If he does, he may reconsider his decision to ensure that appointments to the position of Senior Counsel are done annually.
If he announces Senior Counsel each year, then by 2025, all the attorneys in Guyana may end up becoming Senior Counsel. The members of the inner sanctum would no longer constitute an exclusive group, and the value and respect associated with this elitist appointment will diminish.
The judiciary should put a rest to most innuendos about the neglect of the tradition of appointing Senior Counsel. They should publish the names and dates of the appointments of Queen’s Counsel and later Senior Counsel since Guyana became independent. This information will confirm that the established practice has been to limit the number of such appointments in keeping with preserving the value and elitist character of the appointments. You cannot have a situation where there are more than twenty five Senior Counsel in the legal profession in Guyana. It will devalue the silk.
The number of persons being robed in silk has to be limited. And because of this fact, there will be controversies as to who is deserving of appointment, and there will be the usual debate as to why certain persons were left out.
The appointments will be subject to criticism that is not objective. There is always the option of establishing fixed criteria for a person to be robed in silk. In some jurisdictions, a person can only become a Queen’s or King’s Counsel based on distinction in the higher courts. In Guyana, we are awarding persons who have never or rarely practiced in any court at all.
The awarding of Senior Counsel should be abolished. It is a colonial relic. It is a trapping of elitism which has no place in modern societies. It has never been and is still not a measure of legal competence or brilliance.
If you look at the judgments of the Caribbean Court of Justice, in its appellate jurisdiction, you will find some very young Guyanese lawyers making a name in the highest Court of Guyana. The young lawyers have been impressive. Their cases are reported in the law journals and law reports. They are matching minds and arguments with those robed in silk.
The President has made nine appointments to the position of Senior Counsel. He should end it at that. The award should be dispensed with. It has no relevance and place in modern jurisprudence. It belongs to an age that is long past.

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