By Jenique Belgrave
Chief Justice Sir Patterson Cheltenham has stepped into the debate about the replacement of the Queen’s Counsel (QC) and King’s Counsel (KC) titles with Senior Counsel (SC), while Attorney General Dale Marshall has questioned why lawyers were resistant to the change in a republic Barbados.
Sir Patterson made it clear on Friday that the power to discontinue the use of QC and KC lies solely at the discretion of the President and the Cabinet.
It was revealed in the Official Gazette dated September 1, 2023 that Cabinet had agreed the KC and QC post-nominals would be discontinued, and all members of the legal
profession appointed to the Inner Bar would be known as Senior Counsel.
The announcement was met with intense debate within the fraternity and in the general public about whether lawyers should be allowed to continue the use of the QC post-nominal given the island’s new republic status and the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, as well as whether the Cabinet had the authority to make the change.
On Friday, Sir Patterson pointed to the Profession Trade and Business Registration Act 1979 which he said made a clear reference to ‘Attorney at law- SC and QC’ and ‘Attorney at law (other than SC or QC)’.
He added: “The authority to grant the honour and dignity remains an executive decision. The authority to affix a post nominally remains vested in Cap 373.”
“In future, all those elevated to the Inner Bar will be Senior Counsels until Parliament in its wisdom decrees otherwise,” the chief justice reiterated.
He was speaking moments after inviting 11 attorneys to the Inner Bar in an official ceremony at the Supreme Court.
In a brief address to the gathering, Marshall noted that with Barbados’ change to republican status, while there was little doubt that in respect of other offices — parliamentarians, judges and the President itself – “any duty and fealty should be owed to our nation, yet somehow, we, the lawyers, have been timid about accepting that the same precept would apply to the upper echelons of the legal profession”.
“Some members of the Inner Bar, quite peculiarly, see nothing odd about continuing to accept an obligation to plead the King’s cause, in circumstances where these Courts are no longer the King’s Courts,” he argued.
Pointing out that India, Hong Kong, Ireland, South Africa, Singapore, Kenya, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago have all switched to the title with no monarchical connotations, Marshall urged that the change made here be embraced as the island moves to forge a new path.
“It is fitting that in our new republic, shorn of the umbilicus which connected our institutions and our very psyche, to the monarchy, that we should take this step in completing the process of true independence,” he stated.
Marshall also noted that it was not the first time the island had ceased to use the QC designation for one of SC, as it had occurred in 1975 before the decision was made to revert to the former title four years later.
The 11 new SCs at Friday’s special sitting were Wilfred Abrahams, Tammy Bryan, Rudolph Cappy Greenidge, Gillian Henderson-Clarke, Kathy-Ann Hamblin, Edmund Hinkson, Anika Jackson, Stephen Lashley, Angela Mitchell-Gittens, Alliston Seale and Liesel Weekes.
Arthur Holder, the 12th, was absent as he is overseas on national duty.
Sir Patterson offered the attorneys congratulations on their elevation and reminded them that as they are the island’s first Senior Counsels since Barbados became a republic, the public’s gaze would be focused on them.
He urged them to use the opportunity to display the appropriate “grit and resourcefulness as you strive to become a source of confidence to colleagues”.
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