Latest / Corie Sheppard Podcast / From Laventille to the High Court: Justice Westmin James’ Unlikely Journey

Transcript

From Laventille to the High Court: Justice Westmin James’ Unlikely Journey · Corie Sheppard Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is that I look younger than I am.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so then there was a look.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Are you the lawyer?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can be my child.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I used to have a saying to them is that age doesn't always mean wisdom and youth doesn't always mean ignorance.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: There are protocols in place for us when we have to interact with other arms of the state, right?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: I end up having to, in one of my judgments, speak to AI to make um, you know, a pronouncement in my judgment about AI, which I think can be very useful, but it has to be used ethically and must verify it.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't come from means.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was I was born in um Coconut Drive in Mova, Laventil.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: I have been just before I went to university, I was still living in Eastern Quarry, Laventil.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't come from means.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that in its own um its own difficulties.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: I saw law in every aspect of life.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um we have to be conscious of ourselves, of unconscious biases.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: I actually wanted to help people in a different way.
• 1:10
  Corie: Don't miss this one.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be sexy.
• 1:17
  Corie: Hi, before we get started, we wanted to take a moment to ask you to support the channel for free by liking, sharing, and subscribing.
• 1:26
  Corie: Those are the three things that we realize you're not doing as much as you all say you're enjoying the conversation.
• 1:30
  Corie: So please, we appreciate your support.
• 1:32
  Corie: Let's get into today's conversation.
• 1:34
  Corie: Welcome to the Cory Shepherd Podcast.
• 1:36
  Corie: Welcome back to everybody who's been listening.
• 1:37
  Corie: I'm trying to memorize our man um bio here to give an intro, right?
• 1:42
  Corie: A gentleman I've known for a very, very long time.
• 1:44
  Corie: He is the High Court Judge in the Supreme Court of Trinidad and Tobago.
• 1:48
  Corie: I'm going to vote.
• 1:49
  Corie: Go ahead.
• 1:49
  Corie: Former High Court Judge in Belize, former High Court Judge in Barbados, former Dean of the University of West Indies Cave Hill campus.
• 1:56
  Corie: Deputy Dean.
• 1:57
  Corie: Deputy Dean, we're getting closer and closer.
• 1:59
  Corie: Sitting judge in CCAT and the IBB.
• 2:03
  Corie: Correct.
• 2:04
  Corie: Mr.
• 2:04
  Corie: Westman James, the honorable right, Mr.
• 2:06
  Corie: Westman.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: At least in my opinion.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: How are you doing, brother?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Good, good.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's good seeing you.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a long time.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a while, right?
• 2:16
  Corie: I have to tell people that this is a tranquil boy, right?
• 2:19
  Corie: We get his school thing.
• 2:20
  Corie: I have some people in the comments who say we talk about schools too much.
• 2:23
  Corie: One of the reasons I talk about schools so much is because I feel like these schools have to be studied.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 2:27
  Corie: Yeah, it's interesting that a school like Tranquil has produced people like Pat Bishop, Russell Atapede, Dwayne Bravo, Westman James.
• 2:34
  Corie: Something happened there that we must understand.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we were some of the guinea pigs.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: We were the guinea very early days of uh a six-form of Tranquil.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's right, that's right.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that was its own special thing.
• 2:46
  Corie: It was, it was.
• 2:46
  Corie: I went Fatty Mo for people don't know that.
• 2:48
  Corie: And I, well, didn't get into repeat a few times before I get to A-levels, right?
• 2:52
  Corie: It was a task.
• 2:53
  Corie: And then I eventually applied Dr.
• 2:55
  Corie: Sand.
• 2:56
  Corie: He was the principal number side.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: He's the one who let me in.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Because of course, we all came from somewhere else.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: So before that, I was at St.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: James Secondary where I did um CXE and St.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: James didn't have an E-levels.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: But before that, I went to what people would know now as Mukarapo Junior Sec.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I actually went to a junior secondary school.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know this, no, I thought you was in Franco all the time.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, Junior Sec is.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I started off at Mukarapo Junior Sec, which is now Mukurapo East or West or whatever.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:28
  Corie: Yeah, no more Comprehend Junior Sec again.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then after three years, you had to go somewhere else.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was lucky to be able to go to St.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Jim Sec as opposed to the senior comprehensive in the sense that it's for whatever reason we did CXE there and I had to find a way to do A levels.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: All of us, all of us.
• 3:45
  Corie: It was interesting.
• 3:45
  Corie: And we end up there.
• 3:46
  Corie: You would remember that not just Tranquil had just added Form 6, but they also were transitioning from the old Tranquil building to the new space.
• 3:55
  Corie: We were both all hazardous though.
• 4:00
  Corie: I don't know if that ocean thing in them time.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was and those assemblies and mornings in the old oh lord.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Chaos.
• 4:09
  Corie: Chaos.
• 4:09
  Corie: Sometimes you build in your class in last week, that breakdown, you won into a new class in next week because they're transitioning points.
• 4:15
  Corie: But these schools are to be studied like when they produce people.
• 4:18
  Corie: Yeah.
• 4:18
  Corie: Like when we are.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: And not only am I proud of all the schools that I've gone to and what I've been able to do is that if we don't give those schools and all these schools enough, not only resources, but actually think of them as being able to produce whatever they could produce and the best, we treat them in a different way.
• 4:48
  Corie: 100% is a discussion that comes up all the time when common entrants, I just call it now SEA.
• 4:53
  Corie: Yes.
• 4:53
  Corie: When SEA results come out and you have these children who it with the disappointment almost like like like failure.
• 5:00
  Corie: And I don't know what it is.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure for me for sure it was, right?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we I felt that way.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like I was doing badly at all.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in fact, I skipped a whole standard because of of how well I was doing.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: But at that point, to see the those results, of course.
• 5:15
  Corie: Yeah, I felt it.
• 5:16
  Corie: So you gain them results that time, you're going through that that emotion yourself into the world.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Also my first choice was Trinity College.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's very interesting, yes?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: One because I had an unc an uncle or a step uncle who um who went to that school and then so I looked up to them and so I wanted to go to Trinity College then.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that was always my first choice then, but somehow that did not work out.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Which it's fine in the sense that I mean I think life carries you where you need to go when it is that it needs to.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the the people that I met along those that way um was amazing.
• 5:57
  Corie: I could only imagine, I could only imagine.
• 5:59
  Corie: So knowing you from Tranquil Days, I remember, well, we lose touch.
• 6:03
  Corie: It's really just the other day, um, some people came together and say they're doing a reunion for I ain't gonna call the yeah, we live tranquil, right?
• 6:09
  Corie: But they were doing a kind of get together, and I saw your name come up just before that.
• 6:14
  Corie: As uh Hyko uh Georgini Hyke was in Belize, right, right?
• 6:19
  Corie: So I was like, hey, Westman, doing you know, and you wonder with people in school sometimes because for people who know this man was bright, he was doing well in school, he was up there, he could say where you want here now.
• 6:29
  Corie: He was one of them, a small form six group, right?
• 6:32
  Corie: But some special people were in that group.
• 6:33
  Corie: So when I saw you there doing that, I was like, this, this, this is it, this is it, this is what we were trying to become.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was that was very interesting.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we got to see some persons that we have because I've been out of this country for quite a bit.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was 12 years that I was out um, you know, in different jurisdictions.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: So coming back and see reconnecting with some of the persons that I have, you know, that were part of my journey to be anywhere, right?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was good.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but also to hear that it's things that I couldn't remember, that many of my colleagues um always knew that this is what it is that I wanted to do.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: And apparently I was very certain, apparently, when I was in school, uh, this is what I was going to do.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you learned the choice, but no, right?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was trying to catch through.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, look, I don't ask these exams, right?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um and to get to the next level.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so apparently it they could all see and and hear that I was not only focused on being a lawyer, which I I I was.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: I I I could I remember that I've always wanted to be that.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah but um so it was very interesting to see if I hear all of those stories of things I would do specifically about this.
• 7:39
  Corie: It's one of the advantages youths have now that we might not have their whole lives documented on video, in the post.
• 7:44
  Corie: So for words, yeah, for better or for words, for better or for words, but they could see it because the way we lost touch as as schoolmates, they will never really lose touch like that because we when it was tranquil, it had no um it had no social media.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: There was no, there was none.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: So it was very interesting too, as well, because I I I studied away as well.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was uh able after the un after university, um, because of how well we did and at the faculty, I was able to get a full scholarship to go to study my masters in England.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: And when and and I was at Cambridge, not because saying reflect the reason why is that when I was leaving, Facebook started.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it started in these universities, yeah.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: From what is that?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: England or going to be Cambridge and of course.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, I signed up, and so I still have a Facebook based on uh my um my University of Cambridge email address because that's how these schools were to kept keep together.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: I returned to the Caribbean, of course, there wasn't nobody.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: And a few years later, I started getting friend requests, and I was like, wait, I think I have this thing already, right?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: So then that's how it is, and so that's how you know, in terms of people were keeping together kept, you know, you know, in touch for a while.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how certainly I kept in contact with persons from those school days.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I makes sense, it makes sense.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, not disconsidered the old people.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what are we gonna do?
• 9:09
  Corie: What are we good though?
• 9:10
  Corie: Let me just accept this now.
• 9:10
  Corie: We just oh my Jesus Lord.
• 9:14
  Corie: I remember one time I do a no-start lock jacket.
• 9:17
  Corie: Them days it wasn't even lockjack, it was Iob.
• 9:19
  Corie: They didn't transfer to lockjack, it was still in Tuna Puna, and it's my 25th birthday, and I feel in a way, I say, boy, Korea again, old boy 25.
• 9:27
  Corie: Imagine that, right?
• 9:28
  Corie: I had no opposite.
• 9:30
  Corie: That's when you get called to the bar.
• 9:32
  Corie: There's a school opposite IOB, and a boy hits his ball outside eating, and I'll go in for the ball.
• 9:37
  Corie: He's like, Thanks, Uncle!
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Immediate depression.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's like um my son telling me that I'm retiring sooner.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I will kick you down.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we will kick you down.
• 9:50
  Corie: I know when you talk about things like Facebook, I wonder what it's like for you as a sitting judge.
• 9:55
  Corie: Can you go on Facebook and say the emancipation of the absolutely not?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um now the Facebook and social media oppose its own issues with judicial officers because it was not something that was there before.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um, of course, that's how we get our news, how we uh interact and know anything that's going on currently.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um so there has to be at some point um some kind of you know, some restrictions and or some policies surrounding social media space.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: So right now, for the most part, it's left up to the judicial officer.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you can use it for for good.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they can raise it.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: I remember being in Belize and other judges or in particular want it and has been using it um to be vocal about issues, and and that can, you know, you have to have a balance in religion.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I know I don't post things other than the podcast or yeah, um or any, you know, I don't even post judgments that I do.
• 10:56
  Corie: Of course, yeah.
• 10:56
  Corie: Suppose is a tricky space, yeah.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: You always have to be mindful of it.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I do you can't like things you suppose, but all of that is its own um can post the thing mean that I'm giving having uh if I like a post or I react to a post that it is yes, taken in all sorts of ways.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: I understand, I understand.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that goes into not even just social media space, but to our own personal lives.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: I I your life is far more restricted as a judicial officer.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: You can't go as many places you're the friends that you had.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I went to school with many lawyers, right?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, those are the core friends that you would have had during those early times of your your life.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: But those same attorneys now appear before you.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Also, you can be seen to be so and and pictures say things and people interpret things.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: So your uh longtime friends and so on, that you can't necessarily interact the same way anymore.
• 11:53
  Corie: Yeah, at least in public spaces, particularly.
• 11:55
  Corie: You say judicial officer.
• 11:57
  Corie: Yeah, I keep saying judge.
• 11:58
  Corie: Well, who cover who would consider judicial officer?
• 12:01
  Corie: Right concept.
• 12:02
  Corie: So who would fall under?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: So that includes, of course, the the highest would be the chief justice, the judges of the uh court of appeal, judges of the high court, their masters who are like judges in chambers, their magistrates who will deal with more um uh the summary offenses and so on.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, they are assistant registrars, they're all part of the uh you know judicial officers because they sometimes registrars they do make decisions or judicial decisions in some regards.
• 12:29
  Corie: So they would have to practice that restraint as well.
• 12:31
  Corie: They're conscious of it.
• 12:32
  Corie: Correct.
• 12:32
  Corie: I understand.
• 12:33
  Corie: It's something that you go through in your academic part of your journey to be a lawyer, like understanding that public side?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Not as much because we're what we it's certainly academically, we what we have trained for to be as lawyers, right?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you can only be a judicial officer after a certain amount of time of being an attorney at law.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so for judges, you have to be an attorney for at least 10 years.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Generally, um, judges are not appointed, yes, at 10 years generally, but a little longer.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was one of the the youngest called um persons being appointed to the bench.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you have that, and and then yeah, so magistrates, you have to be an attorney for at least five years for assistant registrars and so on.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's it requires you to be an attorney.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what we were being taught too.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: And in terms for the Caribbean, for sure, we all of our kind of um knowledge and and teaching for law has been to be lawyers, to be advertising.
• 13:30
  Corie: I got you.
• 13:30
  Corie: So then there's an adjustment you had to make because if I'm a very vocal lawyer, correct.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and many of the times you would have been doing cases, right?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh um along your career.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, while I was an attorney, I was doing a lot of human rights cases um about rights.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um when I was teaching at university, I was teaching human rights and and public law stuff.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, and I so as an academic in my former life, I wrote articles, um, uh academic pieces about issues, right?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's it becomes it can follow you.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to always be, you know, now that you have taken on a different role, have restraint about things that you say and and do.
• 14:13
  Corie: It makes sense.
• 14:14
  Corie: Um, all my uh I have some experience with the legal world, right?
• 14:18
  Corie: Most of it is from shows like Legally Blonde, and you know what I mean?
• 14:20
  Corie: It's like TV, TV law.
• 14:22
  Corie: Better call Saul and so on, you know.
• 14:24
  Corie: That's all my experience with law.
• 14:25
  Corie: And that's when most public think I think.
• 14:27
  Corie: I would imagine, I would imagine.
• 14:29
  Corie: I always remember there was a scene in Better Call Saul where the attorney was telling Kim Wexler about a movie script because she wanted to go and do as a public defendant, and he was like, It are none of them sexy cases you're talking about, and that's only in the movies.
• 14:40
  Corie: So most of it is mundane.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the things I see on TV a lot is three quarters of our cases in the civil sphere is a land matters.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Generally, children or siblings fighting over land of parents.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: That must be excited.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Or adverse possession.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like two-thirds to three-quarters of our cases are exactly.
• 15:03
  Corie: It's an island the land limited.
• 15:05
  Corie: We can understand why that would happen, you know.
• 15:06
  Corie: But I always wondered, like when you see on TV, for instance, they talk about sequestering a jury.
• 15:10
  Corie: So they put our jury away and they tell you, and I hear it here too in the news where they tell you don't pay attention to what happened in the public space, don't comment on, because I guess as a juror, at that point I'm sort of part of this process in the judiciary, right?
• 15:23
  Corie: Is that realistic?
• 15:24
  Corie: Like, can we can we do that?
• 15:25
  Corie: Because well, yes, we'll take people's phone and take me because now that's those so you're great.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: So there's the criminal judges and how it is the juries.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we have been moving away from complete jury trials much of that because of some of those very practical situations that you would have, and to more a judge being able.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and juries have its advantages and disadvantages.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: But yes, they they are supposed to be um, you know, while they're making those decisions, not you know, interacting the same way.
• 15:54
  Corie: But you all have expectations.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you all know because exactly.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: So you they have to give in directions as to, you know, you have to disabuse yourself of things that you may have heard and you don't discuss it with other people and and stuff like that.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: But you can only give directions and let persons do it.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And for the most part, people uh take it very seriously and and they they do their job.
• 16:16
  Corie: I can tell you why I just take it seriously though.
• 16:17
  Corie: Yeah, because they call me for jury duty at the time.
• 16:20
  Corie: That is one of the most intimidating experiences I ever had in my life.
• 16:22
  Corie: I can imagine.
• 16:23
  Corie: Oh my god, we need to pay all in some normal rooms.
• 16:25
  Corie: That's number one.
• 16:26
  Corie: The room, the the court, where do you spell that?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: The court.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, the court, suppose.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I know you're right.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: In the hall of justice where most of the criminal courts are, that's what people um interact with if they have to jury duty and so on.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And those that building can be quite daunting for some persons and intimidating for sure.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: And as a result, um, you know, there are certain divisions like family divisions where the court court and the courtrooms are completely different because of that.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, in for example, family court, um, they were supposed to have round tables and so that people are not feeling this intimidated because it's not a space for uh, you know, our judicial officers to be this grand thing and and so on.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: The civil courts have moved and we are at the waterfront where the courtrooms are still a little bit like that, but a little bit more modern.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it is it doesn't have that dark.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: But in the criminal, criminal sphere, it's still like that because uh, you know, it's it has to have certain security measures for for persons and and judges and for the um the public and and so on.
• 17:30
  Corie: So gotcha.
• 17:31
  Corie: Well they called us, and I want to see maybe a hundred and something people show up in the courtroom.
• 17:35
  Corie: And I come from work, right?
• 17:36
  Corie: So them days are still wearing them clocks, clocks shoes noisy, that's a shame.
• 17:41
  Corie: So they call in these, they have this look like a bingo system where they call out the names and stuff, and the the judge came out and he basically explained to people why they're here, and he said, You all did nothing wrong.
• 17:51
  Corie: Well, that's the only time I exhale, he said we're part of the process and them thing.
• 17:55
  Corie: And yeah, I uh where I sat, I could hear like handcuffs being removed or shackle, whatever it is, call that.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: I want to run out of that courtroom at our point.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's very intimidating.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: But we believe that I always wanted to be on a jury.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I am apart from being it.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: But of course, even when I was a lawyer, because of the illegal knowledge that you have.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so, because of those that kind of legal knowledge that people may possess, it they make terrible jurors, right?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because you are ahead of the case until too much, right?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, Oh, you should have asked this, and no, no, no.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: You're supposed to listen to it in a bit.
• 18:32
  Corie: Well, I was like, when my name and caller, they call the 12, and my name and caller say right back home.
• 18:37
  Corie: And then I hear the term alternate juror.
• 18:39
  Corie: First time I ever hear that no my name caller, and I in these clocks, clocks shoes walking around the whole court.
• 18:44
  Corie: All the people who we try now sitting there.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: So they're something happened to a juror that the alternate has to put it in the place of that juror.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to sit down and hear everything just the same way.
• 18:56
  Corie: Yeah, it was a it was a long process to the point where I noticed that the defense was uh because they had they said that the defense could object to any juror for no, they don't have to give a reason or something like that.
• 19:06
  Corie: Yes.
• 19:06
  Corie: So everybody moved to the objections, they can't last objection when I walk in up and I realized anybody who sway on the Quran because they offer you the Quran and thing, right?
• 19:14
  Corie: Or the Bible or whatever book you need, or the constitution or something like that.
• 19:18
  Corie: Boy, I say, All right, I'll go with the Quran, but frightened if you can't know you go object, and I could go back and sit on but say, Boy, let's lock me up inside here.
• 19:25
  Corie: Is necessarily intimidating because of criminal cases.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um but it's just people are afraid, right?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: We we uh we are in a society now where you know crime is uh is uh has been in is increased, and it's I don't think that we all can we all live in a society we know.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so persons and regular persons are afraid to be a part of any of that kind of process.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: And and I understand, right?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: They feel like they can be intimidated, that the persons can come after them, and that that puts them in a specific danger.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I think they we are going in already if two jury trials, um, persons going in with a fear of what this you know system is yeah, because the people watching me dead in my face, I give them a thumbs up and I say good.
• 20:09
  Corie: Yeah, yeah, just make sure you know I don't want to.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think that the whole situation is, and that's why I think some of the they try to move away from um jury trials and putting business in that and the pool of jurors uh become smaller and smaller, right?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: I would imagine.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's important for us to find alternative ways to have the the administration of justice continuously go forward, but um to have it fair for everyone.
• 20:34
  Corie: If you're a business organization or brand looking to reach an engaged and growing audience, the Cory Shepard Podcast offers opportunities to sponsor, partner, and advertise.
• 20:44
  Corie: You can check out the email address in our YouTube description or via the link in our bio on Instagram.
• 20:50
  Corie: We need the money, like uh Max and House, you remember that.
• 20:56
  Corie: Well, a couple of questions there.
• 20:57
  Corie: No, uh I wonder about your level of fear, like your comfort level, because you you there, you've seen this plan, and I wanna this is before going back to your time as a lawyer, when you're sitting as a judge, you have any of those concerns because you're living in a society.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: We all do.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, security is uh uh an important aspect for everyone.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we interact with persons whose lives, livelihoods, and the things that is so important to them that we deal with on a daily basis.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: And now we can't remember, I can't remember half the people that even half quarter the people that interact with on a daily basis.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it be lawyers, whether it be the um litigants or witnesses and so on.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we are in a society where we have to live, we have to go to the supermarket, we have to go to the the doctors, all of which we were to be interacting with everyone that it is that we are gonna have to deal with, right?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I'm not even just talking about criminal um, you know, judges, because they're civil judges we have interact with far more um than in the past.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: Serious about the land and all.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we they are all those kinds of things.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um the our safety in jurisdictions w they are uh you assign police officers, right?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um I have been in jurisdictions where you are assigned two police officers, one for your protection, one for um, you know, making sure that you get to the places um yeah, safely and so on.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because there are sometimes threats to judicial officers um in all sphere.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Family, children, it doesn't matter, right?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, so we also have to take that into account.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: That also limits our movements at times.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: We have to be cautious.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: Our families, um, they are vulnerable to to any kind of attacks as well.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, it's a concern that um everyone has, um, like everyone else in existence.
• 22:43
  Corie: So when you say in jurisdictions, you assign police officers.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: What do you mean in jurisdictions?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like some cases you go.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, and you can be, yeah.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: So in Belize, you are I had two.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: In Barbados, you are assigned a protection officer.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: At all times?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: So whom are you and everything?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: And they can come on, yes.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it can be, yes.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: I know since you didn't mention that.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not mentioning.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: But we have um, you know, if it is that yes, credible threats in relation to to um to our judicial officers, there can be um that, and of course, the chief justice who is uh the third in line in any any country has um protection detail.
• 23:17
  Corie: But but you wouldn't have unless there's a threat, unless you could express a threat.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Educate that into a space where about what our security protocols are just that makes some sense.
• 23:29
  Corie: No thing.
• 23:30
  Corie: What's that?
• 23:31
  Corie: That makes some sense.
• 23:32
  Corie: Correct.
• 23:33
  Corie: Oh, and then the other question that came up in terms of outside of your own security is the the system itself.
• 23:39
  Corie: Like when I when one of my experiences was when I walked in there, my first thought was there's a very colonial feel to all this, right?
• 23:47
  Corie: Where the setup of the courtroom, the way it is, the design of it, not if not the outside of the building, certainly inside the court.
• 23:53
  Corie: Yeah, and then there's uh my lord and my lady and my, you know, which it was tricky for me, I don't understand.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I know.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's the thing is public generation, but they uh that's correct.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: You the way in which our uh protocol system is in place for judicial officers and judiciary has been um part of our colonial background.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so we are still referred to as, you know, my lord, like we are lords in in England or my ladies, um, and and and that's how people are referring to you.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um magistrates are your worship and that sort of thing.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um many jurisdictions are moving away from that.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Barbie has recently um, you know, ensured that you don't call judges my lord and my ladies anymore, but just your honor, right?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and for me, generally, when people interact with me at at court, if they are respectful, there's I am I don't mind whatever they call you.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: They would say judge or they would say so or Mr.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's not a problem for me.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they call you your worship because that's where they may have interacted more so in the magistrate court level.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um for judges, for for lawyers, you know, that them them saying that tells me something different.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: But for if it's a a litigant and so on, you know, I I wouldn't be uh you know offended that you could call I keep telling people justice was not on my birth certificate.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's all right.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, you know that doesn't matter either.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, but for some persons that is in important to recognize and to for the office to for respect for the office, right?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, yes, we have been moving away from that.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Trinidad moved away from wigs uh quite a long time.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: So no more wigs.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: There's definitely not.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we still wear robes, um, both judicial officer as well as the um the lawyers um when it is that they are advocating.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and so there have been movements um to that, but we have Trinidad, we haven't gotten there completely yet.
• 25:47
  Corie: Okay, okay.
• 25:48
  Corie: But I see that you you you you don't mind the movement, you're already relaxed with a little bit.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's part of a generational thing as well, where it is that what is important to some generations are not the same.
• 26:00
  Corie: Let me talk about that generational thing now, because you're kind of young to be a judge.
• 26:03
  Corie: Is that the case where you are?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um I get that quite a bit.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I got it even when I was a lecturer at university, many people thought I was the student as well, right?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: I le I don't have I am so old now, but I don't understand.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: But yes, I was um when I was first appointed, I have been a judicial officer for six years now.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was first appointed um, you know, quite a bit.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I was in my 30s when I was appointed, first appointed a judicial officer, which was yes, quite young for generally for persons.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um on the IDB, I was the youngest judge ever to be appointed um uh administrative tribunal, and so that poses its own um um difficulty.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm always asked about that.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think it brings a different perspective.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Most of the workforce, and as I I said in interviews for the IDB, most of the workforce is our generation.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's important for the persons and who are adjudicating over matters in relation to that generation to know what the generation is.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's a I I think it's not bad in any kind of way, um, but it has its own downforce.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Becoming a judicial officer with all of the restrictions that one has to do at a very early stage in your uh career or your life has its own disadvantages, right?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: Which is, you know, you can't develop the kind of relationships that you may have done, you know, before without those um, you know, being in the fishbowl and being looked at.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, so there are those aspects.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you can there's also the potential of boredom at some point, right?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if you as longer you're doing one thing, because it's a career.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um for judges in Trinidad, if after you've been a judge, um, an actual appointed judge, you cannot go back to being a lawyer for 10 years after you're no longer a judge.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: So you it's a career that you are going to be in for quite some time.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's important for you to be able to um, you know, whether progress the court of appeal or otherwise, you know, to to have challenges, to do different things.
• 28:06
  Corie: So you're saying that if you the the time comes when it comes to an end for you being a judge, you have to wait 10 years before you go back to being a regular lawyer.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, in Trinidad, yes.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that's sort of so that's when so many times, of course, the the public uh does not um know all of the different aspects of it.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: And we are humans as well, and that we have to um to not only live in this society, but we also have to, you know, follow some the same set of rules uh and restrictions.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, many people will think that, oh, you all are paid.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um it shouldn't matter, look at it.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly, right?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it's always difficult to raise concerns um to a public who where you are still in a privileged position.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think we can deny that we have uh a different you know privilege, but you know, know that you have concerns too, and and um to those concerns will always be diminished because oh, you all are you all are you have that status or you have to go as far as people are concerned, especially in our society.
• 29:07
  Corie: Yes, big title and the perception that you're making good money in this country.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, of course.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: It goes with security, it goes with all of those things.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, well, you all are you all should be good, so don't worry about it.
• 29:19
  Corie: But that they are real concerns.
• 29:21
  Corie: Of course, as with anybody else.
• 29:23
  Corie: Speaking from the person who likes that person who appears before you, I would I would imagine again going back to that courtroom is just intimidating.
• 29:30
  Corie: Gratefully, yes, the judge told us all the things we need to say here for jury duty.
• 29:33
  Corie: And to me at that time, relatively, he was an older man.
• 29:36
  Corie: Yeah, I don't know if I see somebody my age that I would be out of worried.
• 29:40
  Corie: I'd be like, You could, you alright, right?
• 29:42
  Corie: Because my judgment at 30 something was a little poor.
• 29:45
  Corie: Granted, he was much more mature than me since school days.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: I know you get that from people like in public in terms of, but I used to get it since I was an attorney.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: So anything is just that I was accustomed to this all along.
• 29:57
  Corie: So you start at 25 as an attorney.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I was I was caught, but I looked younger.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think what's the problem is that I look younger than I am.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um and maybe good jeans.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: But the fact is that I looked, so I there was always a look.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: I would speak to clients on the phone, and they thought of me, and it's completely different.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: They thought I was some white old man or something until they saw me.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so then there was a look.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: A look of I knew the look.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Are you the lawyer?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: You can be my child, right?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then I have so I had a way in which I had to disarm persons about that.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I used to have a saying to them is that age doesn't always mean wisdom and youth doesn't always mean ignorance, and that I had the experience to be able to know not only what you your problem is, but it's to resolve it.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that was by preparation and and so on.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I was able to disarm individuals, and because of my work, they were able to um to then, you know, I was win over people.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that has happened all along my career.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: As um I, you know, as uh a lecturer, I had to say your class older than you, sometimes, right?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and and also a different generation, and I had to reach them.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: I have this communication.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: And as a judicial officer, I have been so lucky that some many of the judges who I've worked with, like um on panels like CCAT and and IDB, have not only seen my work, but they've trusted me.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: They listen and so on.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I've had that.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: And in the courtroom, especially since we have a lot of um now, because of AI and all a number of other things, a lot of self-represented litigants because of the cost of legal fees and so on.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: People are trying to do this themselves.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: I have to sit down and explain.
• 31:40
  Corie: Wait, hold on, sorry, slow down, what it means to them.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Saying that people use AI to litigate on their own behalf.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, yes.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we can see it because the it is um because of the AI tools.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: Without hiring a lawyer, you're talking about yes, and I would always uh you know, uh encourage them, please go to an episode.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right if you want to, right?
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can represent yourself.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I wouldn't recommend it, but you know, um you could do an internet criminal matter or something or chat GPT, like what to do, what to tell the judge?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, no man, and and in civil in the civil way, um, in the civil arena, um, and we are seeing it in terms of the pleadings and so on.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: They they are drafted, and I know that they are drafted by things because I know what it should be.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: They have the experience as well, of course.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: I know what it should be.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that it's it's it's a difficult.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to take a lot of time to explain to them.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: And um, because of my teaching background, I think some communicating the simple things to or complex things to persons in a simple way is important.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one of I think the superpowers.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how I can get win over persons.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think that I am able to, you know, to do or litigate or or to to adjudicate.
• 33:01
  Corie: Of course, of course.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: You have the experience doing it.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, as well as uh as I know what I'm doing, right?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, of course.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you're not going to piss and tell me it's raining, and because we will have a problem.
• 33:13
  Corie: I want to go back to this AI thing and all this, man.
• 33:15
  Corie: I'm shocked.
• 33:16
  Corie: Because uh there's no sphere that I feel uncomfortable using AI.
• 33:20
  Corie: We use a lot of it just to put the show together, decide on guests, decide on the schedule.
• 33:24
  Corie: It's essential to all of us today.
• 33:26
  Corie: So the point where I have a doctor GP, I go by him all the time, guy Darius White.
• 33:30
  Corie: Salute to Darius.
• 33:32
  Corie: And when I reach by him, he says, All right, what was his symptoms you're facing?
• 33:36
  Corie: I say, bah, bah, bah he says, So, what chat you beat?
• 33:39
  Corie: I say bone marrow cancer.
• 33:41
  Corie: He's like, Do you have any idea okay?
• 33:43
  Corie: But yes, I know.
• 33:44
  Corie: But again, I'm still by a doctor, and we go laugh about that, but I trust his judgment.
• 33:50
  Corie: And I'm surprised to hear that somebody would go all the way because if it's court, if you reach this stage of court, it would mean to me that whatever you try to settle amicably, it didn't work.
• 34:00
  Corie: So it reached where you need a third party, right?
• 34:03
  Corie: I would think that that is the last place somebody wants to use Chat GPT and those kind of things.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, but it's it's it need it's in the legal sphere as well, even lawyers, right?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's a part of our uh, you know, our lives now.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's important for us to know how to use it and use it ethically.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yes, let's consider using it, um, thinking that that you know they can get put in all the facts of the case.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and they will be able to to to litigate the case.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: But because the tools are not catered for the Caribbean, they're not it's it's not as helpful as to totally.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it might not be trained on our whole legal system.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: I end up having to, in one of my judgments, speak to AI.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's one of the reasons why I think one of my um, you know, it became even more new because I had a situation of hallucinations in submissions by an attorney before me.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I had to deal with it.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and one of the reasons why I could have identified it is because not only did I have the knowledge about what things were, but I knew about how AI worked and and how it produced stuff.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that's I could identify that this was not quite and that and that I had to verify the information.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I, in my verification, could not find the cases that they were referring to.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the solution is really and I had to make um you know a pronouncement in my judgment about AI, which I think can be very useful, but it has to be used ethically and must verify it.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: And litigants and Pusson are not able to know how to verify some of the information that it is, and but what you find is a lot of um defendants, you would find a lot of defendants of um, yeah, some litigants too, but they are defendants who are using it because they can't either afford attorneys or otherwise.
• 35:47
  Corie: Makes sense.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: A lot in the defamation will there are a lot of content creators who are being sued because of things that they're they're saying, right?
• 35:57
  Corie: All right, well, nice to have in you here.
• 35:59
  Corie: Let's wrap this up now and go suit this content creator.
• 36:02
  Corie: We've seen it more and more.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: Bloggers, bloggers in particular, who say right, and that's one of the other reasons going back to what is this is that we have to be careful of our interactions with generally the public, right?
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because at any point, any one of those persons that we have interacted with can be end up being a litigant before you, right?
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: And most persons we don't remember who we have interacted with on a daily basis.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think there was a uh a time I went to licensing with uh my godson to, you know, um for him to get a license.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: No, anything.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then one of the persons who was assisting us was one of a litigant before us, and that becomes problematic, right?
• 36:40
  Corie: So why did we it wasn't your license, your swearing godson?
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: No, I see and but it and that's the other thing.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: So because of that, there are protocols in place for us when we have to interact with other arms of the state, right?
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, whether to get our license, whether or not registration of vehicles, whether it's to um get our passports or otherwise.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: The passport is different.
• 37:03
  Corie: 100% because I was in the passport office yesterday.
• 37:06
  Corie: You and my minor.
• 37:07
  Corie: Um because when I see the it was a process, right?
• 37:09
  Corie: Let me just say it was it was our process.
• 37:11
  Corie: We spend a lot of it sometimes too.
• 37:14
  Corie: Mother and them sit on outside their weights and she will have spot for me as walk-ins.
• 37:18
  Corie: And I because I had this coming up today, I'm thinking you can't do this.
• 37:22
  Corie: I don't know if you could sit there.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because the chances are you could I've done it too.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, they are sometimes different protocols for when judicial officers have to interact with those uh things.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I and do many of the things, and I like to do many of the things myself.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: I go to the bank the same way.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I sit down in the lines or stand up in the lines.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: I do not, and we can't use our um, and you should not and will not use our offices for special treatments.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you shouldn't?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was not going to study something.
• 37:53
  Corie: Don't give me no judge title and no ones, and I go in in the frontly line in the body.
• 37:58
  Corie: You don't have a badge.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: If I go in frontly line, indicators on vehicles and other things, but I don't tip into it.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that that's a different It makes sense.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was just thinking one of the fundamental things for me is that, and and something I used to teach all the time, is that we are well, I do not believe that I'm better than anybody.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: It is important, like I am no different than anyone else.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: We just doing different things.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I also believe that nobody is better than me either.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think we are all the same, and I think fundamentally that means that I should be engaging in the same things.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I but I can see the difference when it is that they recognize that I am, or they either they recognize me from somewhere or the other, or that they then realize that I am a judicial officer, then it's changed.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: Their interaction with me changes, and there in the way in which they deal with me changes.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I I not particularly like it because I think we should all be treated fairly.
• 38:50
  Corie: Yeah, fairly is tricky.
• 38:52
  Corie: You know, you that that intimidation factor or whatever it might be will be there.
• 38:56
  Corie: Uh without you commenting on this, the the temptation to sweeten up a judge if I see many paps, but office would be there too, you know.
• 39:02
  Corie: I I see what we're doing later.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's and those arms of the state uh tend to be before the the courts all the time, right?
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it be customs, of course, whether it be police officers.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: I just think about the general public.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: They are all always before the courts.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: So it uh, you know, sometimes we we think they are being given privileges and so on, but you have to be careful about how it is that we are interacting with those arms.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: I cannot ask for no favor from any one of how could I at one point ask the favor from any executive arm of the state?
• 39:41
  Corie: You have to be so you're very, very careful about your job.
• 39:44
  Corie: Of course, of course.
• 39:44
  Corie: So you can't like join Instagram live, you have a burner con because that's some live entertaining.
• 39:48
  Corie: No, no, these bloggers are entertaining, no, you need a burner con.
• 39:51
  Corie: You set up one video before they leave, but not different.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't because as I said, actually, some of those very same persons are now before me, right?
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: Being sued for things that they've said on those platforms, and actually, it's um sometimes the the staff that is assigned to the team in which I am sometimes are the ones who bring it to my attention, all right?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I know this thing and they know about the thing because they watch the live, and now I am now having to read the transcript.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm watching this actual thing.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: No, the transcript not just getting delayed.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, these people in whether or not this person has said defamatory things about someone else.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: But understood.
• 40:30
  Corie: Funny, I should be here now, given the last couple episodes you put out, you know what I mean?
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, because I am here and now of my interaction, I most likely would have uh have to recuse myself in anything dealing with you anyway.
• 40:42
  Corie: So oh, interesting.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: No, well, it would just not be me, so do you know who you'll get?
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 40:48
  Corie: As long as they just invite Westman quarterly being quick in the clearance.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I would not be able to, yeah.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that's been important.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: I have had to do that in some regards.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: I have, well, certainly with family members, you know, even though they're not biologically related to me, they're no, I had to recuse myself, of course, because it is.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have I had a previous client once now before me in a different capacity.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: I had to disclose that.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and see if the parties will have, you know, any problem with me adjudicating it.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I would have recused myself there.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um there, but there are other times that people, the public feels, right, and you have to be careful about it.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I know attorneys, of course, I have worked with them.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there was a challenge to me adjudicating a case because one of the counsel in a matter um was a previous judge along with me in a different capacity.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I have worked with them before.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so how do you to deal with that?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: And in some small societies like ours, of course, yeah.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: We would lawyers must have known people.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: If I had to be a lawyer before you become a judge, you I have to have done how we interact and how we deal with our cases, you know, it's is it's a different thing, but we we can't avoid it.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: But the perception has to be taken into account.
• 42:10
  Corie: Yeah, I want to get back to that idea of how the earliest started because I mean Bus, any bar and you'll go calls it bar 25 is is young.
• 42:17
  Corie: So what you started studying law as soon as you leave tranquil.
• 42:19
  Corie: Oh, and so on.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so afterwards I I went to I was able to get to university.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because of my background, um, I didn't know that you had to apply to university the before you even did exams.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um I had a year.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: You have to wait.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: So then I applied, I was able to get into the faculty of law um at University of the West Indies.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: At that time, we had to do one year in Trinidad um and then had to go to do two years in Barbieras.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so after I did that, I which is one particular because I didn't come from Mainz.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was I was born in um Cookina Drive in Mova Laventil.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: I've been just before I went to university, I was still living in Eastern Quarry, Laventil.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: I've been, you know, I lived in Coofa for a bit.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: But so they they we didn't come from Mainz.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that in its own um its own difficulty.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I spent two years there.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was able to overcome all whatever difficulties, and I was able to graduate at that time with a first class honors, which was one of three people in a toll.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that then I came back to Trinidad.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: I did the first year of the Hewletting Law School.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: We are supposed to do two, but because of what I did at uh university, I was given a full scholarship to to attend uh Cambridge.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I took a year off from law school, did my master's, a return because I always wanted to be to continue to live and build the Caribbean.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I returned, I completed law school, and then I was able to be called to the bar.
• 43:53
  Corie: So the master's is in law's always the master's in law.
• 43:55
  Corie: I see.
• 43:56
  Corie: Yes.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: But you don't have to you didn't have to do that.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, you didn't.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't do it.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um now it's because More uh prominent than most people have um a master's in law, but yeah, it was the time it was very um I think um it was very rare because you didn't need it for practice.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: I practiced um it with a great chambers.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was exposed to a lot of a lot of good work, um, and I then was given an opportunity after around five years to to teach at university and teach law, um, which I did for 10 years.
• 44:26
  Corie: So they're so you're starting to teach five years into your legal years.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's also not the norm.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so as an academic, you can you can, but uh coming from practice to that.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I brought that that experience, what it was actually like in practice to the the students.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and being the age I was, I was able to and I suppose to connect to us a younger generation to figure out how they learn because they learn in a completely different way than how we did, right?
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: Which was to be lectured to and so on.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had to um, you know, uh incorporate those kinds of things into my teaching.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: I brought in videos, you know, short um, you know, videos, suits, I brought in clips from that to start off what you know, making complex legal issues into things that they can relate to.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, of course.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I did that.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I uh I you know I suppose that and then I was doing human rights education while at university as well, um, across the region in Belize and so on, hence why I think I was first was able to get my first judicial position was actually to an international uh as an international judge on the Caribbean Community Administrative Tribunal um very early on.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, everything is very early.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um so it was very I was very proud of it because I was the in the first five judges on this inaugural um international court.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um yes, I was a youngest, but I was the only one who was not a senior counsel or king's council or queen's counsel um at the time.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I think when we were being sworn in, they made a joke that they thought because the the tribunal should be gender balanced, they didn't realize it was supposed to be generational balance too.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but I brought in different aspects.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: But um, for that first five years, I did a lot of labor law.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: I cut my teeth in the industrial court at Trinidad and Tobago.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was it was very interesting.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: So workers' rights, um, human rights.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: This was just based on the work that was coming to the chamber at the time?
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, as well.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, because Tell me something.
• 46:27
  Corie: When you go into chambers, do they typically make a decision as to whether they do civil matters or criminal matters or do they specialize?
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: No, so chambers in in Trinidad has been that people share the the expenses, right?
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, usually it's headed by a senior um individual who can also feed well to you, but it includes lawyers of all different spheres.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: So my chambers had criminal attorneys, had um civil attorneys, had probate and practice and conveyancing attorneys, um, so they would have different mix and you get to work with all different types.
• 47:00
  Corie: If you want to support the show and ensure that we're getting the best guests here telling the best stories and we gain a little bit of back and all out of all of them, you could support for free by liking, sharing, and subscribing on YouTube.
• 47:10
  Corie: But you could also join our Patreon and just file us to ensure that we could continue to get stories that inspire, educate, empower, inform, and all the other in things that these people behind the scenes tell me to say.
• 47:21
  Corie: So go and do it now, and then we could jump back into the episode.
• 47:25
  Corie: Bang.
• 47:26
  Corie: So is it one of these fields like a content where when you're reaching, you had to do audits in this political, everybody doesn't prove it when they now reach, or you have a choice?
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as a practitioner, soul practitioner, you know, um going into chambers, you tend to, as a young lawyer, be a you have to do everything.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: I see.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: All right, you had to do everything.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: I have done all different aspects, and I think that was important.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because as a judicial officer, now I know exactly what it is.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: You can't really take, bring wool over my eyes and say, oh, this is how it's like mm-mm.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't sound right to me.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: I know very well.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: That is not how that works.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I suppose one of the rationales for ensuring that a judicial officer has a certain amount of experience as uh an attorney at law first to know, all right, and to practice, to to know how it is like.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, but yeah, so I so I did that for for a bit.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I so I taught uh for a thing, and then there was a point.
• 48:18
  Corie: You made it again to teaching.
• 48:19
  Corie: Well, you always had that in mind, or no, you know, that's just the the odd thing.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um I always knew I wanted to be a lawyer.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now I didn't think about being a judge, but I always wanted to be an attorney.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I was inspired by the teachers that I had at university.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um so so the that made that open my eyes that oh, you can be a lawyer and teach.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I I entered into that aspect.
• 48:44
  Corie: Oh, so it's not easy, you didn't stop one to do the other.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: You were doing teacher, lecturing when you do anything.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, yes.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I I was actually taught uh since I became a lawyer, immediately I was able to was now a judicial officer in the court of appeal, had a school that did um the external law degree, and um straight out of law school, I was also teaching um students there.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I was able to develop those skills as well.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, and so that's it for a long time.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: Then I got appointed to DCAT, and within that same year, I was offered a position um as a judge in Belize.
• 49:16
  Corie: So I want to go back to those admissions to be a judge, but before that, there are some things here that uh like I'll say you're talking about things where odds start against you in a ridiculously high way.
• 49:27
  Corie: So you don't have the means.
• 49:28
  Corie: You're born in saying coconut drive.
• 49:30
  Corie: I was wondering if it's coconut drive.
• 49:32
  Corie: It's about coconut drive in salt.
• 49:33
  Corie: Is the affluent and it's right next to Golfview and things.
• 49:36
  Corie: Not that coconut drive, right?
• 49:37
  Corie: Mova.
• 49:38
  Corie: Malik, you know, of course, and then going to junior second, those kind of things.
• 49:43
  Corie: What what primary school you went to?
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_01: I went to Mukarapo Boys RC, um, which is in St.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: James's now.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we claimed.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: We could be in Mary's.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: We established that he's from St.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: James as well.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: In Mary's Mukarapo or something like that.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: But they changed that too.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know where I know.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: I know exactly what I'm saying.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, so I used, and at the time as well, I used to um live Dundanal Hill.
• 50:03
  Corie: Oh in St.
• 50:04
  Corie: James, too.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, up on the very top of that hill.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I would walk from there to to school after a certain time.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then walk back at least halfway because you can walk up that hill.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, problems, problems, problems.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: At that age, especially.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, that's what it was.
• 50:18
  Corie: Early life, you remember having ambitions in primary school, that's the way you want to do, you know.
• 50:22
  Corie: Sometimes as children, you you kind of know what you want to do.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think, yes, I did.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: I I I think from very early on, I wanted to, I know what I wanted to do as a part of my life.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's cliche, but yes, I think I I was it was what I'm saying.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: Wait a minute to know what made you uh that that feeling.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think it's be being told that you're I'm argumentative and always talking, but I I think I one of it is, and I said something that I think carries with in my entire life, is that I actually wanted to help people in a different way.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that was through the to the through the law.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that law, I saw law in every aspect of life.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so I thought that that would be the one one way in which I can help people in that way.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's why I engaged in human rights litigation and so on.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's because I actually wanted to to do so.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um when I became a judicial officer, um, I wanted to do the change that you know people um that we all asked for when it is that we were lawyers.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_01: So makes sense.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: So my mother was as a housekeeper for many of these affluent um families for for quite some time, which I interacted with.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: I would go help her, um, you know, and so on.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: So she would work for doctors, um, you know, lawyers and other persons.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was it's it was very interesting just for education.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, of course.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that was yeah, she did that.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: My father was a technician, um, you know, who I didn't know for a long time, but you know, he was part of my life at some point.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it was it was still they were not very um wealthy individuals.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: But you communicating to them that this is your just this is something that you want to see over.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: And and and for a long for a good bit, I think my parents trusted me in in letting me do what it is that I did.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_01: But remember you say it's argumentative, you know, so they couldn't tell you nothing anyhow.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_01: Somewhat, but yes.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but also they it's they couldn't under they don't understand fully, right?
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I think uh the your success for certain persons are measured by different measures, right?
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so for my mother, seeing or her friends telling her you so they saw her son in the papers or he is doing this, or he was on the news, or that that makes them more proud.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: And what I would say, it's like, okay, I at one point she said somebody call her from the United States because I I was on Ian Allen for some reason or the other, and I was like, that's not how we measure success, but okay.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: As parents know we can understand that's how but that's how we see the things, right?
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: If they see me in papers, they see you at judgment or whatever, even though I don't, you know, that that's what they say.
• 53:02
  Corie: Westminster, I just like your parents know when I see the thing in papers, Westman is I message us, hey, I message Sheldon.
• 53:07
  Corie: I say, Sheldon, look what Westman doing, you know, a few proud of them things.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like when I got first class honors and so on, which was a very big accomplishment um at that time and so on, right?
• 53:17
  Corie: Of course.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_01: My explanation to us, like I came first in test.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like that the the the the difference in how we communicate and how those things mean things to people is is different.
• 53:26
  Corie: Makes sense, makes sense.
• 53:27
  Corie: No, again, when I see you in tranquil, this was one of the brightest men in the form, right?
• 53:31
  Corie: And had some bright people with the minus up there.
• 53:33
  Corie: 100%.
• 53:35
  Corie: So how we end up asking for junior second, I have you done as somebody who just doing well all in life.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: No idea, to be honest.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was doing well all up to that.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, sometimes, you know, but then we weren't given our scores, right?
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we didn't know.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um we sometimes were zoned.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_01: I have I to be honest, I didn't.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but and and so the question was whether I should have stayed and do it over, right?
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, which I had was old enough or young enough to be able to do that.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I decided to go.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to go.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted what makes you decide not wanting to do that exam again.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um pressure like who want to do that.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um as well as I think it's I I suppose I didn't know yet um that you no matter where it is that you go, you still have control over your destiny, right?
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you can work hard and still do it.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that that means that everybody has.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_01: It it's I think I am also lucky and and I was you know given opportunities and along the way I did not get here without the assistance of so many people, whether it was be people who gave me past papers or whatever the case, it's all along the way.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I understand that it's not it's not easy for anyone to to overcome some of these challenges that I would have had, but it is possible, right?
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was able to stick to the that look, no matter where I'm going, I this is where I want to go.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: And there are more than one way to skin a cat, and I can get to where I want to go in a different route.
• 55:06
  Corie: So you're not you're going to junior sec at the time, and you're not losing your drive to become a lawyer or to work in justice.
• 55:13
  Corie: What's the experience like in junior sec?
• 55:14
  Corie: I grew up in St.
• 55:15
  Corie: James, I have a lot of friends who went junior sec.
• 55:17
  Corie: You might be a little different from most of the people I know who went junior sec.
• 55:21
  Corie: And yes, I saw some things.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: Different kind of environment.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I saw some things.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yes, fights, yes.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and but it's also there are diff.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's also one thing that gave me skills to understand different people, right?
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: Growing up where I did there's a different I was I'm able to understand what the what their experience has been a little bit and how um how they see things.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: The the rationale for persons of different groups, different types are different.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: And if you are you can have a disconnect if you are not understanding what it is that they are trying to convey.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and sometimes that is language, right?
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, the way in which they express themselves in one way is not how someone who has had doesn't have that experience would express them until they take it as something else.
• 56:19
  Corie: You can hear it.
• 56:19
  Corie: It's in how you communicate and know it, because it's easy to say I went genetic and I became a anybody could do that, but you're very careful in how you said what you said because it's important.
• 56:29
  Corie: It's hard for lots of disadvantages.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so many people just say, Oh, why don't you just work hard or do this?
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: Even if some of the I've known many of the brightest people in those worlds who are from very much the same university, but they did not get the opportunities that I may have gotten.
• 56:46
  Corie: Yeah, luck is a factor.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think so, right?
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: And people seeing you and being able to pull you up and to give you opportunities that you can show yourself.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_01: It is not just being bright.
• 56:58
  Corie: No, no, no.
• 56:59
  Corie: And I have no doubt that the individual efforts or the individual belief or hope, but even those things that have come from some memory father had one of the best examples also is there's a guy who we insult then in business and things, he does well.
• 57:09
  Corie: And I remember him talking about my father's from Lavanti Road in Sauron.
• 57:13
  Corie: So he experienced some of these things, you and Belmont and so on.
• 57:16
  Corie: You know, he's he's not from for what he's achieved today.
• 57:18
  Corie: If he was to trace back his part, you wouldn't find it.
• 57:21
  Corie: You would you would assume certain things, right?
• 57:23
  Corie: And the guy was saying, Look how good you do, you're from Lavantee.
• 57:26
  Corie: Why people don't just it and and that word don't just.
• 57:30
  Corie: Yeah.
• 57:30
  Corie: And I always remember Daddy's saying, but you're a millionaire, why you don't become a billion a billionaire?
• 57:34
  Corie: And the man said, Just so I'll become a billionaire.
• 57:36
  Corie: And he's like, Well, why do you feel everybody else could change the circumstances drastically except you?
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah, you know, it's just when well, certainly when I was younger, even like using your address for applications, right?
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: You saw to use someone else's address to be able to get a chance.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because when it is that you've people see your address, they assume things were about you.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, right?
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: They see you, they see assume things about you.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's how our lives are.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so people try to so they there are roadblocks for persons that are not present for other persons, um, and they don't see it unless you have a little bit of a lot of people.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_01: I hear that you're conscious of that in your in your in your experiences now.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so even um much of persons from my generation and um uh you know, persons from Laventel and so on are first generation Trinidadians, right?
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: My mother and her entire family are from St.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_01: Vincent and the Grenadines, right?
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we you know, my father's mother um was from Barbados or something of this sort, right?
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_01: We many of us, um, you know, black Trinidadians and that generation are first generation or have a parent, grandparent lineage from other Caribbean islands.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_01: That is a different perspective of even if we forget it.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you never knew it, right?
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're figuring out some things is the reality.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's so our experiences can be brought into it um to how it is that we adjudicate as well, right?
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we have to be conscious of ourselves, of unconscious biases um that we would all have, um, and to make sure that you recognize it and that it does not factor into how it is that you're going to um to adjudicate the case, which has to be on the law and the facts before you.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but not to be totally out there by the thing that judges are in some ivory tower.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_01: That we that you uh you're distance from the realities of what goes on in uh in the society.
• 59:31
  Corie: Of course, of course.
• 59:32
  Corie: Now, going back to your school days, and most of the people I know who went junior sec went on to go Compre, something going on.
• 59:37
  Corie: Right, but just be doing good.
• 59:39
  Corie: It's the natural progression.
• 59:40
  Corie: So how you move to St.
• 59:41
  Corie: James I got up.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the thing.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I was doing well.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh that and it was all it came with its own challenges because uh in junior secondary school, they you are getting the perception is that you wouldn't, you're not that you're not great.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so therefore, the way in which you were taught, as well as um, you know, the subjects that you were doing is not the same as would be in some of the other schools.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: So um I asked to go, you know, they they saw that I was doing very well, and uh school I see, and the teachers and so on.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's and they were like there's an option for you to apply to go to a different school, and and then we did that.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I tried to go to Trinity, that would not happen.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um that was good, eh?
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_01: I know, right?
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it it's um, and then but they were it's St.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_01: James was able to take me.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um again, because I was going into form four, some of um some things were not open to me, um, some subjects, because you would have had to start it in form three.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: So again, you are limited because they are so there each and every time there are some aspects and you have to overcome those things.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that meant, of course, that when you the courses you did for CXE, you there are limits to what you do in A levels as well.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_01: So what you did for CXE, you remember?
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I think I did uh well social studies, integrated science, which can go on to being A levels, but um uh Spanish.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh I did history, which I loved.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: I loved uh maths and English.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_01: I got you, I got you.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: So even then you're studying your path is to get to law school still at this point, right?
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then people thought that you had to do readings, but you don't.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_01: You do not have to do any reading.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: Some of the best attorneys are persons who did sciences.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, because of the way in which I thought you had to do history, sociology and whatever those are.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to do any specific courses in order to get into law.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_01: I understand.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_01: Even though people think that, then you have to do these reading courses and so on.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_01: You don't, you can do any courses once you do well, you can get into their faculty and with their grades.
• 1:01:44
  Corie: I with you, I with you.
• 1:01:45
  Corie: No, in terms of the future, two things for the judiciary itself first, before I get to your own future.
• 1:01:51
  Corie: How is it changing?
• 1:01:52
  Corie: Because like when you when one of the things people expect us to talk about here is why it's take so long, it's like 15 years.
• 1:01:56
  Corie: The matter I was called to to jury duty for was 15 years old.
• 1:02:01
  Corie: Yes, and uh, I wonder where the future lies or where the changes are, somebody on your inside.
• 1:02:06
  Corie: Right.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, first of all, I'm not speaking on behalf of the judiciary if we go, goodness gracious.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_01: I am no comment of mine.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: What do you do like to distribute it to judiciary?
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_01: This can be chaotic, yeah.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_01: But of course, the way uh I think the public's perception in relation to how we do work um is is more on things.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_01: We the way in which the public likes uh services now is faster.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_01: We want they want more efficiency, they want um certain things.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what one of that is education, where we need to educate people that sometimes things kind of there's a place for efficiency, which I am very well aware of.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_01: I've been giving judgments almost simultaneously with the the after the trial and so on, and and very close thereby.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been able to get a lot of decisions out to make sure people get an answer and that it's not taking five and ten years.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um but sometimes we need to slow down, all right?
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_01: Some things can not always happen very quickly, and in in and so but so it's those expectations um and matching those things um is in will be a challenge for us.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think for judicial officers we are being will be brought into more political uh questions rather than necessarily legal and judicial questions, and we will have to know how to to deal with that and manage that um in order to meet the expectations of the public.
• 1:03:37
  Corie: Yeah, no more than ever.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_01: Very much so.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so because of all of that, we have to to be careful of how we uh interact and we have to be very reason in our decisions, and so that's why I will write more because it is important for persons to read what is what is my reasons that it's not only well researched or that it is um you know logical or otherwise, but when it is that it it it affects people so much that it's important that they understand the rationale that I came to that decision.
• 1:04:09
  Corie: I witch, I witch you, and even talking to you today, you could sense the care that you go into that with.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, for everybody.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's in persons' lives and their livelihoods and their their families, so it's important.
• 1:04:20
  Corie: Oh, which you, I witch you.
• 1:04:21
  Corie: And what's next for you?
• 1:04:22
  Corie: You say after the judge, you see when it after judgeship 10 years of going mad, not going back.
• 1:04:27
  Corie: So we're going to do that 10 years, and then here and you're going to make a move at some point and say you have ambitions for something else that you want to pursue.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, for a a court, a judge on this level, um, and the high court, there's always the possibility of a court of appeal, right?
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that may be one um avenue where it is that now at the because at the high court we have to we are bound by whatever happened before.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_01: And the court of appeal, you might be um you're given more of an opportunity to to formulate and and create new law and stuff like that.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um certainly would be a um you know a thing that I will look to.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um we we can't be on the privy council necessarily, which is our highest court, um, because it's it in the United Kingdom, but there's the Caribbean Court of Justice that is a uh a possibility for any judicial officer as well within the region where it is the highest court of the Caribbean.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_01: So that is but I also see myself continuing teaching, which I am doing as well, because I love that interaction with uh young minds and um a new way of looking at the law um and possibly more international work.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm looking, I'm thinking of having books, uh books for for for judges to communicate to the public and to communicate to lawyers about ways in certain areas of law so that there can be better cases that come before the courts.
• 1:05:44
  Corie: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:45
  Corie: Well, well, congrats in advance.
• 1:05:46
  Corie: I know you're gonna do it because you had the ambition since primary school.
• 1:05:49
  Corie: You're seeing we've seen that you're gonna accomplish.
• 1:05:50
  Corie: It's something that I'll say this you knew being around you that you'll accomplish whatever you want to accomplish.
• 1:05:58
  Corie: It took me a long time to get out of the tranquil level, but you had that.
• 1:06:01
  Corie: I mean, I know that you're a very ambitious guy, very, very, very principled.
• 1:06:05
  Corie: And this is to me, it's always been who you are.
• 1:06:09
  Corie: I appreciate it.
• 1:06:09
  Corie: I appreciate your community and the work that you're doing in general.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I appreciate you being invited to being there to reconnect with the people who are.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, of course.
• 1:06:17
  Corie: We must do that more often.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you must see how much people we can recover.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think when I came back to Trinidad as well, I also went to all of the people who I think and I thank them for being a part of my life and my journey to get awareness.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't think you can, no one can get anywhere without the assistance of others along the path.
• 1:06:36
  Corie: Of course, and it's especially important to remember that when now we become the others, we are the extend our hands.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I also want to do.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_01: I always, because I was helped, one of the things that I do is that all through my career, I will try to lift others up and to to see where I can help, whether it be financially, whether it just be uh talking career advice or uh recommendations, whatever I can do to help stuff.
• 1:06:58
  Corie: The original podcaster would come in here today is helped.
• 1:07:01
  Corie: And if I say anything outlandish and I don't need your help, I will probably immediately do that.
• 1:07:07
  Corie: Thank you very much.