Pants suit and pastel colours

Aug 23, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – In the 1970s when I was a young employee of a large, service-oriented private-sector firm in Guyana, I was not yet a confirmed employee and therefore could not wear the prescribed uniform. But I was nevertheless expected to dress in a manner appropriate to the office.

One day I arrived wearing a rust-brown pants suit, an expensive and carefully tailored garment, elegant rather than ostentatious, and designed in such a way that it revealed nothing of the body. The jacket came all the way up to the throat, so no blouse was required. Several of my female colleagues complimented me on it, although I suspected that some of the admiration contained a little envy because the outfit had cost more than most of them could comfortably afford.

Later in the day, my supervisor approached me and, with quiet authority told me that I should not wear the outfit again. The problem was not that it was vulgar, unsuitable or poorly made; it was that it was not in the prescribed pastel colours and therefore did not conform to the dress code of the office.

I could have objected, and perhaps I could even have made a persuasive case that the rule was unnecessarily restrictive and that the quality and appropriateness of the garment mattered more than its colour. I could have even claimed that the uniforms won by the other staff members were brighter in colour than my outfit.

But I understood that rules are rules. And where a rule is reasonable and legitimately established, one complies with it before one protests against it.

One can believe that a rule should be changed and still obey it while it remains in force. If every person first decides which rules deserve obedience, an institution has ceased to have rules and has acquired only suggestions.

This is why I have watched the controversy surrounding the Caribbean Court of Justice with particular interest, because I suspect that beneath the elaborate language about governance, panels and judicial independence is the issue of compliance with the prescribed dress code for public sittings of the court.

Justice Winston Anderson, President of the CCJ, has now explained that the Court’s founders intended to preserve the Caribbean tradition of judges wearing judicial robes during proceedings, while bench jackets became accepted for interlocutory and chamber matters and business attire was used when judges were not robed.

According to Anderson, the immediate dispute arose after a colleague appeared in traditional national dress during proceedings on two occasions, including in December 2025 and April 2026, and after Anderson raised the matter privately on 10^th June, he was unable to secure a commitment that the established practice would be followed.

Anderson claimed he subsequently removed the judge from the panel hearing a preliminary application, insisting that the decision was based solely on judicial attire and not on the judge’s opinions, participation in deliberations or views on the case. He further said that the judge was later included in the panel for the substantive hearing, and that a draft judicial dress code was subsequently prepared for consideration.

I see nothing inherently improper in removing a judge from a particular panel where the President, charged with the administration of the Court, has a legitimate concern that the judge will not comply with the Court’s established requirements concerning judicial attire. The question is not whether a judge owns an attire that is culturally significant, or whether some people might prefer it to a robe; the question is whether the person is prepared to observe the conventions of the institution while serving within it.

Dress has always carried meaning in institutions, and courts have understood this perhaps better than most. The robe does not make the judge wise, just as my rust-brown suit did not make me a better employee, but the robe signifies that the individual has entered a different world, one in which personal preference is subordinated to institutional identity.

The judiciary is intended to convey an image of authority and respect for that authority. The elevated bench, the formal language, the robes, the silence and the rituals are all reminders to the public that something larger than the personalities occupying the room is at work.

The CCJ is not merely another office in which six distinguished Caribbean professionals happen to work. It is the region’s apex court, and its President has rightly pointed out that the manner in which judges appear carries implications for courts throughout the Caribbean and for public confidence in the institution.

This does not mean that every dress code is sensible, nor that tradition should become a prison from which institutions cannot escape. If the Caribbean Court of Justice decides that its judges should wear national dress, then that question can be debated, consulted upon and formally decided. But until such a decision is made, I believe persons should comply with the prescribed dress code.

My own experience in that office many years ago was insignificant compared with what is now taking place at the CCJ, but the principle was the same. I did not like the pastel-colour rule, I did not think my rust-brown suit was improper, and I could have argued the matter until everyone in the office became an unwilling expert in women’s tailoring; nevertheless, I complied first and could have protested afterwards.

The danger today is that we sometimes forget that institutions survive precisely because individuals accept certain restraints upon personal expression.

The CCJ controversy should therefore not be reduced to a quarrel about robes, national dress or the taste of one judge against another. It should remind us that institutional dignity is built from small acts of conformity to reasonable rules, and that when those rules are no longer suitable, the proper response is to change them through the institution.

Justice Anderson may ultimately be judged to have handled the matter too firmly; indeed, he himself has acknowledged that he may have approached the issue too strongly.  But that is a question about manner and administration, not a reason to discard the underlying principle that institutions have the right to establish reasonable standards and to expect those standards to be respected.

The old office rule about pastel colours disappeared from my life long ago, and I have no doubt that the world survived my rust-brown pants suit. What has remained is the lesson: sometimes respect for the institution requires you to dress, behave and even restrain yourself in certain ways.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

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• Pants suit, pastel colours, Peeping Tom

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