Appointment of new Barbados chief justice hits legal snag

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC):

A challenge has been mounted in Barbados on the eve of Chief Justice-designate Marston Gibson taking up the job, the Nation newspaper reported yesterday.

The paper said its investigations have revealed that a challenge has been made to the pending appointment, since it does not appear Gibson meets all of the legal criteria to qualify for the top judicial post.

Gibson, who has been residing in New York for the past 20 years and has been practising and teaching law there, was just two weeks ago in Barbados making final preparations to take up the vacant chief justice position.

Question raised

Contacted over the weekend on Long Island, where he lives and is judicial referee of the New York State Supreme Court, Gibson confirmed that a question had been raised about his qualification to serve as Barbados' chief justice under the Supreme Court of Judicature Act.

"My immediate response was to text and speak to the prime minister (Freundel Stuart)," he explained, without disclosing the details of the conversation.

"I have also spoken to the attorney general (Adriel Brath-waite) and the position I take is that I am going to leave it in their hands ... . I have not done anything and I don't know what they are planning to do.

"I am sure that in the fullness of time, they will get back to me with the outcome of their discussions. Apart from that, I will have no other comment," Gibson added.

Requirements under the act

Under Section 7 of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, anyone who wants to become chief justice or a Court of Appeal judge in Barbados must have been practising for no fewer than 15 years in a Commonwealth jurisdiction, or serving during the prescribed period as a parliamentary counsel or as a professor or teacher of law at the University of the West Indies, or at a school for legal education approved by the Judicial and Legal Services Commission.

Gibson, a Rhodes Scholar with law degrees from the University of the West Indies (UWI) and Oxford University in England, had been poised to succeed the retired Chief Justice Sir David Simmons, and was expected to take up office from next month.