BARBADOS is to get a new Chief Justice next month.
Breaking his silence on the issue of the much delayed appointment, Prime Minister Freundel Stuart announced yesterday that the top judicial post should be filled by the first week of August.
“ . . . The machinery has also been set in motion for the permanent appointment of a Chief Justice of Barbados and I suspect, other things being equal, by the first week of August that issue should be behind us,” Stuart said.
Stuart, who is attending the CARICOM Heads of Government meeting here in St Kitts, declined to disclose who would replace former Chief Justice Sir David Simmons, who retired from the bench over 18 months ago.
Responding to reports that his Government had already decided to give the job to United States-based jurist Marston Gibson, Stuart said he “personally, never made any mention of anybody”.
“I don’t think anybody – unless I am going senile – has ever heard this Prime Minister call the name of anybody in relation to the office of Chief Justice,” he said.
Full story in today’s DAILY NATION.