Caribbean secures historic leadership roles on Commonwealth Legislative body

The Caribbean has strength­ened its in­flu­ence in leg­isla­tive draft­ing across the Com­mon­wealth af­ter two re­gion­al le­gal pro­fes­sion­als were elect­ed to se­nior lead­er­ship po­si­tions in the Com­mon­wealth As­so­ci­a­tion of Leg­isla­tive Coun­sel (CALC).

The ap­point­ments were made dur­ing the as­so­ci­a­tion’s Full Con­fer­ence and Gen­er­al Meet­ing, held at the Fuller­ton Ho­tel in Sin­ga­pore from Ju­ly 15 to 17.

Ja­maican at­tor­ney-at-law and leg­isla­tive drafter Michelle Da­ley was elect­ed Pres­i­dent of CALC, while Bar­ba­di­an at­tor­ney-at-law and leg­isla­tive drafter Shaquille New­ton was elect­ed Amer­i­c­as Rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the CALC Coun­cil. New­ton’s elec­tion al­so makes him the first Bar­ba­di­an to serve on the gov­ern­ing body of the in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion.

The elec­tions have been de­scribed as a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for the Caribbean le­gal draft­ing com­mu­ni­ty, re­flect­ing the re­gion’s grow­ing role in leg­isla­tive draft­ing and law re­form across the Com­mon­wealth.

CALC is the pro­fes­sion­al as­so­ci­a­tion for leg­isla­tive coun­sel and leg­isla­tive drafters through­out the Com­mon­wealth. The or­gan­i­sa­tion pro­motes co­op­er­a­tion among leg­isla­tive drafters, en­cour­ages high draft­ing stan­dards, sup­ports pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment and train­ing, fos­ters men­tor­ship and col­lab­o­ra­tion, and works to im­prove the qual­i­ty and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty of leg­is­la­tion.

In her in­au­gur­al ad­dress, Pres­i­dent Da­ley said the as­so­ci­a­tion must em­brace change as it ap­proach­es its 45th an­niver­sary.

“It can no longer be busi­ness as usu­al,” she told del­e­gates, call­ing for a re­view of CALC’s Con­sti­tu­tion and gov­er­nance struc­ture to en­sure it re­mains rel­e­vant to the mod­ern leg­isla­tive en­vi­ron­ment.

Da­ley said the or­gan­i­sa­tion should draw on the ex­pe­ri­ences of oth­er Com­mon­wealth bod­ies, not­ing that leg­isla­tive drafters un­der­stand the im­por­tance of prece­dent and can use those lessons to guide the as­so­ci­a­tion’s fu­ture.

She al­so en­cour­aged greater par­tic­i­pa­tion from mem­bers, re­call­ing that when she first joined CALC near­ly 30 years ago, she did not feel she be­longed. Da­ley said the in­tro­duc­tion of re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives in 2009 broad­ened par­tic­i­pa­tion by ex­pand­ing the Coun­cil from four mem­bers to 15 and giv­ing more mem­bers “a seat at the ta­ble.”

“There is a rich­ness in the di­ver­si­ty of ideas and per­spec­tives that can be found in the CALC fam­i­ly,” she said, adding that the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s suc­cess de­pends on mem­bers con­tribut­ing their knowl­edge and ex­per­tise.

New­ton’s cam­paign re­flect­ed many of the same pri­or­i­ties, fo­cus­ing on in­creased col­lab­o­ra­tion among leg­isla­tive drafters across the Amer­i­c­as, ex­pand­ed men­tor­ship pro­grammes and the de­vel­op­ment of young pro­fes­sion­als in the field.

New­ton was nom­i­nat­ed by Da­ley and sec­ond­ed by Ryan Awai, As­sis­tant Chief Par­lia­men­tary Coun­sel of Trinidad and To­ba­go, high­light­ing re­gion­al sup­port for his can­di­da­cy.

He cur­rent­ly serves as a Se­nior Le­gal Ad­vis­er with the Unit­ed King­dom’s For­eign, Com­mon­wealth and De­vel­op­ment Of­fice and pre­vi­ous­ly spent five years as Par­lia­men­tary Coun­sel in the Of­fice of the Chief Par­lia­men­tary Coun­sel in Bar­ba­dos.

A 2021 UK Chevening Schol­ar, New­ton holds a Mas­ter of Laws in Draft­ing Leg­is­la­tion, Reg­u­la­tion and Pol­i­cy with Dis­tinc­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don, along with ad­vanced le­gal qual­i­fi­ca­tions from The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Hugh Wood­ing Law School and the Re­gion­al Law Re­vi­sion Cen­tre in An­guil­la.

New­ton has al­so pub­lished ex­ten­sive­ly on leg­isla­tive draft­ing and law re­form in jour­nals in­clud­ing The Loop­hole and the Eu­ro­pean Jour­nal of Law Re­form. Dur­ing the Sin­ga­pore con­fer­ence, he pre­sent­ed a pa­per com­par­ing leg­isla­tive draft­ing con­ven­tions in Bar­ba­dos, the Unit­ed King­dom and New Zealand and ex­am­in­ing how those prac­tices con­tribute to the de­vel­op­ment of high-qual­i­ty leg­is­la­tion.

Fol­low­ing his elec­tion, New­ton said he was ho­n­oured by the con­fi­dence placed in him by mem­bers and looked for­ward to work­ing with Da­ley, the CALC Coun­cil and leg­isla­tive coun­sel through­out the Amer­i­c­as to strength­en col­lab­o­ra­tion, men­tor­ship and leg­isla­tive ex­cel­lence.