THE elevated status of Senior Counsel is not perfunctory or ornamental but rather it is a symbol of nationhood, President David Granger said as he pledged to continuously recognise and reward the work of citizens on the basis of merit. The newly appointed Senior Counsel, Neil Boston, Charles Fung-A-Fat, Justice Alison Roxane McLean George-Wiltshire, Clifton Mortimer Llewelyn John, Rafiq Turhan Khan, Vidyanand Persaud, Rosalie Althea Robertson, and Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Basil Williams, were presented with their Instruments of Appointment on Wednesday by President Granger at a simple but significant ceremony at State House.
Justice Claudette Singh will be presented with hers at a later date as she is currently overseas.
After being declared a Cooperative Republic, Guyana intensified its independence by establishing its own system of national awards, including the award of Senior Counsel, the President noted in his address.

“Senior Counsel, your elevation to this status today is a symbol of our nationhood,” he told the appointees in the presence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Greenidge, Minister of State Joseph Harmon, Director of the Public Prosecutions (DPP) Shalimar Ali-Hack and the former Chief Justice (ag) Ian Chang among other senior functionaries.
“It is a mark of respect, of recognition and of reward for the accomplishments of those who have given, and who continue to give, selfless service to our nation,” President Granger said while pointing out that the average individual service appointed is 37½ years and an accumulated service of 338 years.

“You embody a massive amount of legal education and experience. You are exemplars of a fine tradition of an honourable and ancient profession,” the President further added.
The last set of Senior Counsel was appointed some 20 years ago in 1996. For President Granger, these appointments are an important part of his personal obligation as President of Guyana.
“It is my obligation, not an option, to respect our national system of honours. Failure to confer these awards, whether as a result of caprice or malice, would constitute a dereliction of duty, the debasement our identity of nationhood and an affront to our citizens. I shall, with regularity and consistency, recognise and reward the work deserving citizens by conferring these honours on the basis of merit. This is the custom of our people. This is the convention of good government. This is the culture of a good society,” President Granger said.
Chosen based on merit
On the sidelines of the ceremony, President Granger told reporters that the nine luminary minds were chosen based on merit as he responded to concerns raised by critics who complained about the appointment of a sitting judge as a Senior Counsel. Consultations were held, he maintained.
“For the first time in 20 years, I have appointed three women and I couldn’t find any reason why women weren’t appointed before and as far as sitting judges are concerned as in the case of Justice Roxane George, she served for several years in the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) and were this a normal jurisdiction, during those years, she would have had the [Senior Counsel appointment] long ago,” he told reporters.
According to him, it is a travesty that for 50 years there had not been a single appointment of a woman Senior Counsel.
Meanwhile, Boston, who is among the newly appointed Senior Counsel, told reporters that the appointment was long in the waiting.
He recalled that in 2005, the then Chancellor Justice Désirée Bernard had invited him to apply for Senior Counsel, and though it took him a while, he applied.
“After that there was a Senior Counsel Committee and the committee had planned that you would have two sets, six would go in the first set and about four will go in the second set,” Boston recalled, however, that Committee dissolved.
He added “after the dissolution of that committee, there wasn’t a resurrection of another committee but eight of us names were proposed and President Ramotar was contemplating appointing eight of us Senior Counsel and that never materialized.”
Explaining the process of appointing a Senior Counsel, Boston noted that it is done based on recommendations put by judges of the Supreme Court.
“Because we are practicing before them, the judges will nominate lawyers who they feel have reached the threshold to be admitted as Senior Counsel and then the judges will pass their recommendations to the Chancellor who puts the recommendations together and forward it to the President and from that list he selects,” Boston further explained.
For Justice George, her appointment as Senior Counsel came as a major surprise but one in which she is thankful for, and grateful to the President for his recognition of her. She had applied for the position since 2003.

“I know that there was a list in 2014 and I was surprise to see that my name was still on the list bearing in mind I am and was then a sitting judge…I didn’t ask too many questions, I didn’t speak about the tradition of our profession,” Justice George said.
In offering an advice to new comers practicing in the legal realm, Justice George said be committed. “When I do admissions for counsel, I say to them be a lawyer’s lawyer, which means that while we may enjoy the gallery and the public looks for the gallery, what we look for in a lawyer is their scholarship, their research, their presentation to the court, their deportment, how they carry themselves, so that is what is important,” she said.
Notably, 92-year-old Llewelyn John was also singled out for his 65 years of service in legal field. He was admitted in 1952 first as a solicitor and then as a barrister, for his practice in both the High Court and the Magistrate’s Court. For him, it came as no surprise. He is now on a journey of chronicling his experiences.