Janet Silvera, Senior Gleaner Writer

Malahoo-Forte

WESTERN BUREAU:

REPORTS HAVE surfaced in local legal circles that members of the Jamaican Bar Association and the Cornwall Bar Association are opposed to the appointment of Justice Marlene Malahoo-Forte to the High Court bench.

It appears that one year after criticising some lawyers for what she said was their unprofessional "hustling", Malahoo-Forte has not been forgiven.

She has applied to be appointed to sit as a High Court judge but the submission has to go to the Judicial Service Commission, which is presided over by Chief Justice Zaila McCalla and includes Justice Seymour Panton, president of the Court of Appeal; two members nominated by the General Legal Council; and the chairman of the Public Service Commission.

It is understood that the General Legal Council consults with the Jamaican Bar Association before making its decisions.

Efforts to find out the reasons for the Jamaican Bar Association's opposition to Malahoo-Forte have so far been unsuccessful, with its president, Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, refusing to comment.

Confidential meetings

"What transpires in our council meetings is very confidential," Samuels-Brown said. "To speak about any judicial appointments, I would be speaking out of turn, so I would not be able to comment on the matter."

However, highly placed sources told The Gleaner that at the top of the agenda of an extraordinary general meeting of the Cornwall Bar Association held at Idler's Rest in Black River last Thursday was the issue of the resident magistrate's application.

Malahoo-Forte made headlines last June when, during a Gleaner Editors' Forum, she blamed some lawyers for the wide-scale breakdown of the justice system.

"I think the legal profession has been relegated to hustling," she said, arguing that some lawyers often booked more than two cases for the same period, ultimately creating delays in the system.

Lawyers from the private Bar hit back at the judge, chiding her for using the media to "denigrate" the entire profession.

But Malahoo-Forte refused to back down and, in a Gleaner/Power 106 News interview, went even further, describing the conduct of some lawyers as criminal.

"I see conduct so unbecoming that in other places where the legal profession is properly regulated, they could not practise law," Malahoo-Forte had said.

janet.silvera@gleanerjm.com