ONLY DESERVING LAWYERS SHOULD BE AWARDED SENIOR COUNSEL

Jan 10, 2019 Letters

Dear Editor,

The last two selections of lawyers, totaling 18 new silk attires, who were accorded the esteemed appointments to Senior Counsel in Guyana, leave a lot to be desired, to put it mildly. With all due respect to those elevated, many of you are a far cry from what the standards should be.
Others are morally inadequate to wear silk, others will exploit the conferment to charge ridiculous fees, and some have not the status via non-judicial means, while others are bluntly undeserving. Some of you are a mockery to our jurisprudential heritage, while some have not even been in the arena of the courts.
The criteria seem to be heavily biased in favour of friends and family–both legal and political–, lawyers who will readily undertake instructions from a hapless AG, benefactors, patrons, and other external stimuli that should not be considered in appointments like these.
In one case, a spouse joined her husband in donning silk although she had never distinguished herself in the legal profession. In another, the authorities broke with tradition, and conferred silk on the sitting Chief Justice, a move criticized as a blatant design to ingratiate with the person who will decide on whether the present government demits office!
Indeed, the conferment of the dignity and status of Senior Counsel is much more demanding than a Village Council, Party Chairman, City Hall or Police sergeant appointment, and the powers who confer senior vintage should not allow social and alumni familiarity, or the morass of moral decay and intellectual incompetence to dictate their selections.
They should also refrain from awarding themselves such conflicting, undeserving honours.
These Senior Counsel’s predecessors and objective jurists must be turning in their graves and upset to see such undeserving ranks elevated to their august company. Gone with time, but never forgotten, are the titans of the legal profession, who will forever be revered and discussed in the legal fraternity. Lawyers of the ilk of Sir Lionel Luckhoo, Lloyd Luckhoo, Joseph Luckhoo, B.O. Adams, Kenneth Stoby, Gilbert Farnum, Mohamed Shahabuddeen, Sir Shridath Ramphal, JOF Haynes, Sir Fenton Ramsahoye, Ashton Chase, Sir Alfred Victor Crane, Victor Crane, Miles Fitzpatrick, to name a few, deserved their elevations to SC, and will always occupy the front pews in the Cathedral of Legal Scholarship in Guyana’s jurisprudence.
Unfortunately, those who have been recently conferred have caused heads to shake with disapproval and bewilderment. Dr. Cheddi Jagan, who upheld standards, famously reminded us that, “We must never substitute a donkey cart for a Cadillac.” Just as crucial, these acts diminish the independence of the judiciary.

Laurie Ganpat
Leaders United

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