Last night the Prime Minister offhandedly put down the crown counsels in the Attorney General's ministry.
He basically said they were low rate, junior attorneys - and that's why the government has to hire highly paid private defence attorneys and their firms when it is facing suit from senior counsels such as Dean Barrow. Now, there's truth to what he stated in terms of their lack of seniority - but as the old saying goes, "it's not what you say, but how you say it"….And it's how he phrased it that caused the insult:
Hon. John Briceno - Prime Minister
"The reality is that, ahm, the, in the attorney general's ministry most of the lawyers that we have are junior lawyers, one. Secondly, the pay scale that you have for these lawyers within the government service is very low, so you will not get good lawyers to be able to, ahm, to work for the government. I think it is about $50,000.00, 40 - $50,000.00, maybe a few dollars more, which you will know for an attorney that's really not much money, so that's secondly. Thirdly when you're going to meet the likes of the former Prime Minister, Dean Barrow, who is a formidable lawyer, ahm, we can't send junior lawyers, we have to be able to get good lawyers that can be able to put up a good argument, ahm, in court. So it is because of that we have to be getting people outside of the government service.""
Well we are told, those dismissive remarks caused deep professional insult and actually defamed the 16 or so Crown Counsels who are in the Solicitor General's office.
Today, their boss, Attorney General Magali Marin did some back-pedaling on behalf of her Cabinet boss. She said, quote, "It's true that the government payscale for Crowns needs to be improved. We do have a retention issue with Crowns gaining experience and moving on to greener pastures, because of the payscale. But, the AG Ministry and the DPP have excellent young Crowns in service to the government and very promising Crowns. We hope to improve the retention rate to keep the experienced Crowns employed. But in the meantime we do not have very experienced Crowns and we do not have Senior Counsel employed as Crowns. The government has therefore had to outsource those complex law cases as well as those that are politically sensitive to Senior Counsel outside the ministry." End quote.
We note that while it is accepted that junior crown counsels cannot face off against Senior Crown Counsels in court - in the past when Senior Counsels were retained - the crown counsels would usually be tasked to act as their junior. Now, that job is often - but not always - contracted out to politically favored private law firms - who send their junior attorneys to do that job.
