Ind. court seeks new ways to choose judges

This was stressed yesterday by Cecil Bernard,the new president of the Court.

Bernard who assumed duties earlier this year, succeeding Addison Khan, said, “Our judges must bring to their task an intellectual robustness which enables us to think in the abstract, while doing justice in concrete bread and butter cases that come before us in cases of dismissals, suspensions, industrial accidents, minimum wages etc.

“We must understand how ILO conventions are negotiated and the manner in which Trinidad and Tobago becomes bound by them.

“We must master the intricacies of foreign laws since some of the cases coming before us now, contain elements of foreign law.”

The Industrial Court chief was addressing an Employers’ Consultative Association (ECA) session titled, “Landmark court judgments,” held at the Crowne Plaza.

The event itself was meant to deal with Workmen’s Compensation, the relationship between the Employment Injury and Disability Benefit Bill and the Occupational Safety and Health Act.”

He told his audience, “The Court must have judges who are capable of understand the dynamics of the society, able to bring to the business of judging a sensitivity to the direction in which the region and the world are moving — economically, socially, culturally and in terms of the effects on local labour relationships of the movement toward globalisation in all its manifestations.”

Towards the new system of recruiting judges, Bernard said-: “We have had consultations with some of the major stakeholders, the trade union movement, the Chamber of Commerce, the ECA, and the Law Association, and we propose to invite the universities to become involved more closely in the initial screening of candidates for appointment as judges of the Court. According to Bernard, the Court is also working closely with the Executive on the provision of relevant training for judges, especially in methods of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).

He said the Court proposed to place heavy emphasis on ADR as an available device for the resolution of disputes.