Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter

The Jamaican Bar Association is suggesting that the Jamaican Constitution should not be amended to raise the retirement age of judges until the Jamaican Justice Reform Task Force turns in its recommendations.

The task force is undertaking a comprehensive review of the island's justice system. Canadian experts are assisting with the review and the recommendations are to be submitted this June.

Mr. John Leiba, president of the Jamaican Bar Association, was asked by The Sunday Gleaner last week for the association's views on reported plans to amend the Constitution before the end of June to raise judges' retirement age from 70 to 72 years. He said that his association had responded recently to that very question from Opposition Leader Bruce Golding.

No piecemeal amendment

The Bar Association's position, Mr. Leiba said, "is that it is not in favour of a piecemeal amendment and would rather have everything done at the same time."

Reports have been swirling since late 2006, that the Government plans to amend the Constitution to raise the retirement age of Judges of the Court of Appeal and of the Supreme Court from 70 to 72. The Constitution was amended in 1990, increasing the retirement age from 65 to 70.

There are also plans to raise the retirement age of government legal officers and resident magistrates from 60 to 65.

Dr. Carolyn Gomes, executive director of Jamaicans For Justice, the human rights lobby group, agrees with the stance of the Jamaican Bar Association.

"I think it's a bad idea to be doing any piecemeal amendment to the Constitution," she told The Sunday Gleaner. Any such arrangement should be a properly structured process and must encompass any change that might be needed, based on the recommendations of the task force, she added.

Chief Justice to retire

Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe, who has held the top post in the judiciary since July 26, 1996, is due to retire in June, and Mr. Justice Paul Harrison, who has been president of the Court of Appeal since November 2005, is retiring in July. If the Constitution is amended before June then they could stay on in the job if they wish. The Chief Justice will be 70on June 19.

The Prime Minister, in consultation with the Leader of the Opposition, will choose their successors.

Knowledgeable sources say the two likely successors are Court of Appeal Judge Seymour Panton and Solicitor General Michael Hylton, Q.C. Also being suggested are other names such as those of eminent Queen's Counsel Hugh Small, who recently served as a high court judge in the Bahamas, and former deputy Solicitor-General Patrick Robinson, who, as a judge on the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, presided over the trial of the former Yugoslavian dictator Slobadan Milosevic.

Chosen from appeal court bench

Since Jamaica became an independent nation in 1962, the chief justice has been chosen from the Court of Appeal Bench, and the president of the Court of Appeal, from either the Court of Appeal or from other government departments.

However, there is nothing in law which states that the chief justice must be appointed from the Supreme Court Bench or the Court of Appeal Bench.

Some of the nation's judges have been expressing resentment at comments being made in legal circles that a reason for the proposal to amend the Constitution to raise the retirement age of judges is that a successor cannot be found among their number to head the judiciary.

"The role of the chief justice is an administrative one and as far as I am concerned, every judge is capable of carrying out such functions effectively," a senior judge said last week.