Seepersad among five elevated to Appeal Court

Pop­u­lar High Court judge Frank Seep­er­sad is among five judges ap­point­ed to the Court of Ap­peal, bring­ing the court's com­ple­ment to full strength.

The ap­point­ments were made by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo on the ad­vice of the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, un­der Sec­tion 104 of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

The oth­er new­ly ap­point­ed Jus­tices of Ap­peal are Devin­dra Ram­per­sad, Robin Mo­hammed, Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams and Mar­garet Mo­hammed.

Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh pre­sent­ed their In­stru­ments of Ap­point­ment at a cer­e­mo­ny at the Wa­ter­front Ju­di­cial Cen­tre on Mon­day.

Seep­er­sad was ap­point­ed to the High Court in April 2012 af­ter 16 years in pri­vate le­gal prac­tice. At the time, he was the youngest at­tor­ney ap­point­ed to the Bench to pre­side over civ­il mat­ters.

He has presided over cas­es in­volv­ing emerg­ing ar­eas of law, in­clud­ing breach of con­fi­dence re­lat­ing to in­ti­mate pho­tographs and defama­tion through so­cial me­dia posts.

His de­ci­sions have al­so had a strong record be­fore the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil, with ap­prox­i­mate­ly 10 of 12 mat­ters in which he ruled at first in­stance up­held or re­stored, ac­cord­ing to the Ju­di­cia­ry's pro­file.

Seep­er­sad has al­so tu­tored ad­vo­ca­cy at the Hugh Wood­ing Law School for more than a decade and re­ceived the Dis­tin­guished Alum­ni Award from the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics.

Ram­per­sad brings more than three decades of le­gal ex­pe­ri­ence to the Court of Ap­peal. He was first ap­point­ed tem­porar­i­ly to the High Court in Jan­u­ary 2009 be­fore re­ceiv­ing a per­ma­nent ap­point­ment in Sep­tem­ber 2010.

Mo­hammed, who was called to the Bar in 1994, has worked in ju­di­cial train­ing and le­gal ed­u­ca­tion and con­tributed to the de­vel­op­ment of civ­il and fam­i­ly pro­ceed­ings rules in Trinidad and To­ba­go and oth­er Caribbean ju­ris­dic­tions.

Quin­lan-Williams joined the High Court in April 2017 af­ter serv­ing as a pros­e­cu­tor in the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and as a mag­is­trate.

Mo­hammed was ap­point­ed to the High Court in 2014, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly served in sev­er­al ju­di­cial ad­min­is­tra­tive po­si­tions and as a High Court judge in Grena­da.

The Ju­di­cia­ry said the ap­point­ments would en­hance the ca­pac­i­ty and per­for­mance of the Court of Ap­peal in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice.