Souletet Gray is determined to see justice served in Jamaica practicing in Ottawa, Canada, she maintains a keen interest in justice issues at home.

The Jamaican Justice Review Task Force was set up last year with the pressing mandate of making recommendations to the Government regarding the country's legal and judicial systems. Public consultations have just been concluded, and a national conference will be held to review and discuss these recom-mendations on May 10 and 11. The Sunday Gleanerpresents the profile of a young Jamaican lawyer in Canada who made a strong submission to the task force based on her real life experiences in Kingston's inner-city.

Lovelette Brooks, Special Projects Editor

IT IS a grey, cold April morning in Ottawa, Ontario; winter seems unwilling to give way to spring. A burst of tropical warmth takes the edge off the chill as we enter the offices of lawyer Soulette Gray, located down-town at Heney Street.

The office has a distinctive Caribbean flavour. There are potted plants, multi-coloured window blinds, and a collection of island artefacts and legal books. Gray, a petite Jamaican barrister, solicitor and notary, is sole practitioner of the firm.She was not tending to clients that day, but was having a one-on-one with The Sunday Gleaner on justice issues in Jamaica and her vision for reforming her homeland's system.

Gray recently presented a submission to the Jamaica Justice Review Task Force entitled 'Justice Issues As People's Issues.' A unique presentation of poetry and prose, it is based on her experiences growing up in Kingston's tough inner city.

At age 32, Soulette Gray is among 500 lawyers under the age of 36 in the province of Ontario. She is also highly placed within the seven per cent of attorneys in her age group who are principals of their own practice.

Gray opened her law firm in July 2004. One of the reasons for going solo was because she wanted to "be clean, open and honest with my clients without watching their pocketbooks." However, for this young barrister time is not merely measured by her success, but by experience. Also for her, rewards come not only by making money, but by ensuring that justice is served.

"In the inner city where I grew up, when people say, 'We want justice,' they mean they are tired of being ignored, they feel like they are not been heard, said Gray.

She and her two siblings were born and raised by their father in Franklyn Town in east Kingston. Her mother migrated to Canada when she was seven years old.

"I lived in two tenement yards in Franklyn Town, which provided a good opportunity for me to observe people," she related. "What I saw and heard in my 16 years there are lasting impressions and make me want to do something for justice reform." Gray cannot recall childhood memories of playing with dolls or 'Dandy Shandy' on the street corner; but she remembers standing at her doorway or sitting on the steps absorbing inner-city life.

Inner city

She observed conflicts, anger and rage and would listen and watch scenarios unfold and tried to make sense of what was happening around her. She remembers that 1980 was a traumatic year for her. "We lived with shots ringing in our ears," she recalled. Things got worse around election time; there were soldiers and police outside with guns all the time, we were grounded indoors." The bloodied body of a man being hacked to death by his brother was one act of violence that never left her.

"I was coming home from school and came upon a scene where a man chopped his cousin to death. There was blood on the wall, our wall," she said. "I was terrified and could not make sense of it then but as I grew older, I began to understand. When I went back to Jamaica in 1999 to do my internship, the blood was still on the wall."

Helping inner-city residents manage anger and adopt coping strategies to deal with life's challenges is one of the recommendations Gray made to the Jamaica Justice Review Task Force.

"From close observation of young men in the inner city, I have come to the conclusion that many feel victimised," she theorised. They have very fragile self-esteem and a big feeling of entitlement. A big part of that entitlement is respect, don't ever disrespect them. Fear empowers them, and when they see fear in people they feel empowered, hence this culture of domination which feeds crime."

From very early, Soulette Gray knew she wanted to do something that would help change the way people in her community relate to each other. "By the time I reached St. Hughes, I was thinking about my project on families. I spent a lot of time figuring exactly what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to do something to change the social system," she explained.

"When I was in grade nine, I wrote Prime Minister (Michael) Manley a letter. I thought his social policies were off. I thought if I was a lawyer he would listen to what I have to say, he didn't and I felt I needed justice."

Today, she still has that letter. Even before she left for Montreal to live with her mother she saw beyond Franklyn Town. "I left St. Hughes in third form, did over high school in Montreal where I was taught French and became fluent within a few months. I loved history, and did well in school, but was always mindful of the 'social project' back in Jamaica I needed to work on." How would she achieve this social agenda?

law school

The answer was law school. She completed two law degrees simul-taneously - Bachelor of Common Law (LL.B) and Bachelor of Civil Law (B.C.L.) at McGill University. David Lametti, associate professor of law at McGill and Gray's former tutor, spoke about her passion for law. "Soulette, while a student at McGill, demonstrated an immense passion for justice, and especially questions of race and poverty, he told The Sunday Gleaner. In my first-year course in property law, and then subsequently during her remaining studies in law, she was particularly interested in questions of aboriginal rights and justice. And she was never afraid to voice her concerns in class, or to set them out in print, either in prose or poetry.

Gray carried that energy to the Supreme Court of Judicature in Jamaica in 1999 where she did her internship in the Chambers of the Chief Justice.

"I made a conscious decision to return to Jamaica to intern with Justice (Lensley) Wolfe because I wanted to see how the justice system was working," she said. I was planning my long-range goal of helping reform the system and wanted to test it on the ground.

Chief Justice Wolfe had high praise for her work.

"Ms. Gray was very impressive ... She displayed a remarkable grasp of the principles of law and her analysis of factual situations showed un-believable maturity," he wrote.

Highlights of Gray's proposals to the Justice Review Task Force