Lawyers weigh in on new Senior Counsel designation

Government has scrapped the titles of Queen’s Counsel and King’s Counsel for lawyers in Barbados, almost two years after the country broke ties with the British monarchy under which those designations were given.

But one senior attorney has suggested that a much larger issue than designations needs to be addressed.

In the Official Gazette dated September 1, it was announced that Cabinet agreed that the use of the QC and KC titles “is hereby discontinued”.

“All members of the legal profession who are currently appointed to the rank will now be known as Senior Counsel and use the post-nominals ‘SC’,” it added, noting that the new designation would apply to members of the legal profession who will be appointed to the Inner Bar in the future.

Former president of the Barbados Bar Association Liesel Weekes, SC welcomed the change, saying it made sense given Barbados’ move to a republic which occurred on November 30, 2021.

“My thoughts are that it would only follow that we would divest ourselves of that once we divested ourselves of the monarchy. I embrace it. The other republics in the Caribbean – Trinidad, Guyana, Dominica – had long since embraced the SC as the designation for Senior Counsel, so I don’t think we had to reinvent the wheel in that sense,” Weekes told Barbados TODAY.

Another prominent attorney, Roger Forde, SC also welcomed the move but noted that the previous title would still apply if he went to do a case in another country that does not have the Senior Counsel designation.

“Sometimes it could be a little confusing to have on your letterhead SC for Barbados but KC for OECS [Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States],” he pointed out.

However, Ralph Thorne, another well-known Senior Counsel, adopted a much broader perspective on the matter

“Since I am always less concerned with form and more concerned with substance, I suggest that any genuine reform of the system must now clarify whether seniority should be based on years of service, or demonstrated excellence,” he told Barbados TODAY.

“I have been around long enough to know that it has often been a system of reward rooted in particular favour related to image and stereotype. On this occasion, I remember those of worth who passed on and were denied elevation in spite of their professional, intellectual and academic merit, but were victimised in a system that unabashedly ranked the several manifestations and claims of privilege ahead of genuine merit,” he argued.

The Senior Counsel added: “I hope that one day the profession will have the courage to extricate itself from these false paradigms and say whether they wish to reward longevity, or whether they wish to reward excellence.”

Thorne suggested that the problem in assessing the latter was that it presents a return to the “subjective frailties” of those who are given the responsibility to evaluate.

He contended that the only safe system may be that of acknowledging the virtue of longevity in the law.

(EJ)