Karl Hudson-Phillips QC last week demanded the resignation of Seenath Jairam SC, the president of the island’s Law Association. Local media reports say Mr Hudson-Phillips has accused the association president of a conflict in representing the country’s finance ministry during an on-going enquiry into the collapse of the Colonial Life Insurance Company at the height of the global financial crisis in 2009. According to the Stabroek News of Guyana, previously, Mr Jairam had acted for a group of Clico policy holders.

Irreparable damage

Mr Hudson-Phillips, a former judge on the International Criminal Court, said the association president had done ‘irreparable damage’ to the reputation of his fellow lawyers. His criticisms sparked a war of words over the last few days, with Mr Jairam denying the conflict and, according to the Trinidad Express Newspaper, accusing the QC of ‘egregious’ conduct and of having an ‘insatiable craving for the limelight’.

Backlog

Elsewhere in the Caribbean, the top judge in Barbados has warned that a lack of criminal lawyers is leading to a backlog of cases in that island’s court system. Speaking at a ceremony for newly-qualified lawyers, Chief Justice Marston Gibson called for law schools more actively to encourage students to study criminal law.
According to the Barbados Advocate newspaper, the Chief Justice speculated that a gender shift in the demographic of the local legal profession may be contributing to the problem. There are now more women than men lawyers and, he said, the former might be reluctant to deal with the criminal law.