Barbados’ new Chief Justice is Leslie Haynes, an attorney-at-law with over 40 years’ experience.
Mr. Haynes was sworn in this afternoon at State House, by President of Barbados, Her Excellency, The Most Honourable Dame Sandra Mason, who congratulated him afterwards and wished him well.
The Chief Justice said he was “humbled” to have been chosen for the post. “There’s a lot of work to be done to carry on from where the last Chief Justice left off. The transformation of Government, of which the judiciary is part of, is still to be achieved, and that would be my objective, to transform the judiciary into a modern court system, one that we would all be proud of,” he told the media.
At the age of 12 or 13, Mr. Haynes determined that he wanted to be an attorney, and he worked towards his goal and was called to the bar in October, 1980. He said from then, work was paramount, and that work ethic had served him well until today. He added that his motto has always been work hard and serve one’s clients.
Attorney General Dale Marshall, who was present at the swearing-in, congratulated Mr. Haynes and spoke highly of the new Chief Justice.
“He has been an advocate of extraordinary prowess. He has a keen legal mind, and I think he follows in a very, very strong tradition of judicial officers. For my part as Attorney General, I look forward to working very much with you. I enjoyed a very cordial relationship with your predecessor, and I anticipate that you and I will have exactly the same kind of relationship.
“I agree with you that there’s still a lot of work to be done in transforming our judiciary. It has served us well but you know that I have been very critical of a number of issues, particularly the length of time that attends the delivery of decisions, and I expect that you probably had the same concern when you were on the other side of the bench. So, now is an opportunity for you to help us to wrestle that to the ground,” Mr. Marshall stated.
The Attorney General gave the assurance that the necessary resources would be made available to ensure the tasks at hand were achieved.
The former Chief Justice Sir Patterson Cheltenham retired earlier this week.