CCJ's Byron on four-day visit here

Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer

President-designate of the Caribbean Court of Justice, Sir Charles Byron, is on a visit to Jamaica.

Byron, who arrived yesterday for a four-day visit, is the special guest of the Jamaican Bar Association.

During his stay, Byron is scheduled to meet with Governor General Sir Patrick Allen, Prime Minister Bruce Golding, Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller and Chief Justice Zaila McCalla.

Byron will tomorrow deliver a public lecture at the Faculty of Law at the University of the West Indies, starting at 6 p.m.

Born in Basseterre, St Kitts, Byron is returning to the Caribbean after serving as the president of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

He was called to the Bar of England and Wales by the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, in 1965, and distinguished himself in private practice as a barrister-at-law and solicitor throughout the Leeward Islands, with chambers in St Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla from 1966 to 1982.

judicial career

Byron's judicial career began in 1982 when he was appointed a High Court judge of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court.

He was soon frequently sitting as a justice of appeal in an acting capacity before being appointed a substantive member of the Court of Appeal in 1990.

From 1995-2000, in tandem with Operation Uphold Democracy, in an initiative of the US National Center for State Courts, Byron, with two other international judges and a support team, organised judicial education programmes for the judiciary of Haiti.