A FREEDOM of information request has been sent seeking answers on the 2024 appointment of senior counsel.
Attorney Wayne Sturge, who has previously applied for silk, has a list of 22 questions for the Attorney General on June 26.
He wants to know who applied in 2024 and the names sent to the Prime Minister; details of the consultation process between the AG, the Law Association, the Chief Justice and the Prime Minister; the evaluative criteria or weighting system to assess applicants using the requirements set out in the AG’s gazetted invitation on May 13; and the other considerations taken by the AG.
Sturge also wanted to know if the AG considered “making appointments of as senior counsel that being convicted of a criminal offence accorded with unquestionable integrity, probity and trustworthiness?
“Did the honourable Attorney General consider that being convicted for a criminal offence was a material consideration to the determination of whether an applicant was suitable to be appointed senior counsel? If this was considered a material consideration, were any of the persons considered for appointment as senior counsel a person convicted of a criminal offence?
“If the answer is yes, the names of the persons and the offence for which he or she was convicted.”
He also asked whether a conviction would have been a consideration to disqualify an applicant.
“What was the basis upon which any person appointed senior counsel who was convicted of a criminal offence satisfied the honourable Attorney General that they met the criteria to be appointed senior counsel notwithstanding the criminal conviction?”
Sturge, who is also a member of the Criminal Bar Association and a former UNC senator, also wanted to know why several of his colleagues -Mario Merrit, Nizam Mohammed, Jagdeo Singh, Evans Welch (a former independent senator) and Kelvin Ramkissoon -were considered unsuitable for silk.
He also asked about the criteria used to appoint six of the 16 attorneys who received silk last week.
“I am respectfully of the view that the traditional procedure for appointment to the Inner Bar, shrouded in secrecy and unfortunately tainted by its inherent political input, has been responsible for the suspicion and lack of confidence that the members of the Bar but more importantly the general public responses in recent appointments to the Inner Bar.
“Traditionally, this was not the case as no one past or present would ever question the appointment to the inner Bar of persons such as Karl Hudson Phillip, Tajmool Hosein, Michael de la Bastide, Russell Martineau or Martin Daly,” Sturge said in his letter.
He said the appointments on the last two occasions had been the subject of public debate.
“The present appointees include persons who are sitting Members of Parliament of the government, persons who are politically affiliated with the ruling party’s, friends and secret financiers.
“It also includes some nondescript characters in the legal profession who could hardly be described as persons who have distinguished
