Judge Lectures in Bahamas

NASSAU, Bahamas -- The Hon Justice Adrian Saunders, Justice of the Caribbean Court of Justice will present the 2010 distinguished lecture at the 2nd annual Eugene Dupuch Distinguished Lecture, Thursday, January 28.

He will speak on the topic “The Relevance of the Privy Council in Post Independent West Indian Nation States”. The Lecture is organized by the Eugene Dupuch Law School in conjunction with Dupuch and Turnquest, counsel and attorneys-at-law, and will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the British Colonial Hilton. It is open to the public and is free of charge.

According to a release from the Eugene Dupuch Law School, the Lecture is intended to provide a forum for the scholarly discussion of topical jurisprudential matters that are of interest to the legal profession and civil society.

The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is the regional judicial tribunal established in February 2001 by the Agreement Establishing the Caribbean Court of Justice that was signed by the Caribbean Community. The Bahamas is not a signatory to the agreement, the release stated.

Tonya Bastian Galanis, principal of the Eugene Dupuch Law School, said she is pleased with the strategic partnership with Dupuch and Turnquest.
“Both the Eugene Dupuch Law School and Dupuch and Turnquest are excited about the scholarly information that Justice Saunders will impart to the Bahamian society as a whole, and more specifically, to the legal profession on this very important issue,” she said.

The Eugene Dupuch Law School is one of three law schools operated by the Council of Legal Education, where students can obtain post graduate legal education, before being called to the Bar in various Caribbean countries. The other law schools are the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad and Tobago and the Normal Manley Law School in Jamaica.

Mr Justice Saunders is a native of St Vincent and the Grenadines. He obtained a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) degree from the University of the West Indies (Cave Hill) in 1975 and followed this with the Legal Education Certificate of the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad and Tobago in 1977. He was called to the Bar of St Vincent & the Grenadines in 1977.

From 1977 until 1996 he was in private practice as a barrister and solicitor. While in there he served as a member of the Bar Council of the Eastern Caribbean Bar Association and for several years as Secretary of the St Vincent Bar Association.

In 1996 he joined the High Court Bench of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC) and on May 1, 2003, he was appointed to that court’s Court of Appeal. Between 2004 and 2005 he acted as Chief Justice of that Court and in 2005 he was appointed as a Judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice.

Prior to his appointment as a judge, Mr Justice Saunders was President of the National Youth Council of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.