OECS Bar Association seek mandatory membership for law professionals
 |
|
Former Resident Judge in St. Kitts and Nevis and currently Resident Judge in his native Dominica, His Lordship Mr. Davidson Baptiste leading members of the local judiciary from the tradtional church service which marks the opening of a new law term. (Photo by Erasmus Williams)
|
BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, FEBRUARY 14TH 2008 (CUOPM) – THE OECS Bar Association is advocating a policy that makes it mandatory for all practicing lawyers to become members of their respective Bar Associations and has called on member countries to implement the Legal Profession Bill implemented.
According to the OECS Secretariat in Castries, St. Lucia, the Legal Profession Bill, was among the agenda items at the just concluded OECS Bar Association meeting.
An OECS news release quotes OECS Bar Association President, Nicole Sylvester as saying that the call for compulsory membership of all lawyers has been on the cards for several years:
“I have often advanced that and proposed that case. The proposed Legal Profession Bill addresses that issue of compulsory membership because we need our members to be a part of the process and being a part of the process is not a burden,” OECS Newslink quotes Ms. Sylvester.
She said that the benefits include continuing legal education programmes.
The Legal Profession Bill seeks to link mandatory membership of the respective Bar Association that with the issuance of a practicing certificate.
“We are in the business of providing legal services. Therefore we need to manage our practice and in order to sustain quality and competent service we need to constantly educate ourselves because the Bar keeps changing and the law is constantly evolving. The law is not static. This will help to uplift the entire profession,” said Ms. Sylvester. ~~Adz:Right~~
The meeting underlined the necessity to urge the respective Attorneys General in the OECS to have the Legal Profession Bill, which has had its first reading in the St. Kitts and Nevis National Assembly to have the legislation implemented.
Sylvester notes that once the bill is implemented it will deal with issues such as continuing legal education, discipline, insurance and other important tenets that concern the legal profession and the general public as a whole:
“The Bar is unanimous in this view that the time has come for us to press on and move in this direction. We took that decision years ago. But it has been very slow in the passage. We are actually hoping that the OECS Secretariat will be able to assist us and we are trying to seek some sought of audience with the Attorneys General to see how we can push the matter further. We are hoping that if there is a legal committee meeting, we can attend and that in our respective jurisdictions, constituent Bar Association presidents will agitate,” she told Newslink.
Acting Chief Justice of the OECS Supreme Court Sir Brian Alleyne also supports mandatory membership of the Bar Association. Sir Brian says too many lawyers are concerned almost exclusively with their own activities and give no time to their professional bodies.
“They disregard them, they don’t pay their dues and they don’t participate in the work of the professional body. I think that’s regrettable. I think membership and contribution to the professional body should be a mandatory requirement so that the Bar Associations could be properly funded. If they are not properly funded then they cannot be properly run I think legislation should be introduced in my view which requires the practicing lawyers to contribute financially to the Bar Association. I think that’s an important area for legislative action when we are looking at the Legal Profession Acts in the region and we need to move forward the introduction and passing in the parliaments of the Legal Profession Acts.”
The recent OECS Bar Association Meeting also discussed collaborative efforts for continuing legal education. To this end, having already established links with the Faculty of Law at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill Campus, and the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad, the OECS Bar Association will be approaching the Norman Manley Law School at UWI’s Mona Campus. Discussions are also ongoing with Judicial Education Institute (JEI) on the staging of a law education development symposium later this year.
“We are organising training sessions to bring practical realities to bear on some of the issues that will affect citizens throughout the entire OECS region,” said Sylvester.
The OECS Bar Association, formed in 1989, positions itself as a value added component for the professional development of law practitioners. Its mission is to enhance the administration of justice. Among its success stories, the OECS Bar Association has acted as a catalyst for change of the enumeration packages for Judges.
