Local News

Two new Puisne judges sworn in

02 February 2026
This content originally appeared on Trinidad Guardian.

Vigel Paul and Jus­tice Danielle Thomp­son have been sworn in as two new Puisne Judges.

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Car­la Kan­ga­loo ad­min­is­tered the oaths. Chief Jus­tice Mr Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh at­tend­ed.

Jus­tice Paul pre­vi­ous­ly served as a Mas­ter of the High Court in the Ju­di­cia­ry’s Fam­i­ly and Chil­dren Di­vi­sion. He ob­tained a Sec­ond Class Ho­n­ours LLB from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don in 1998 and com­plet­ed his Le­gal Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate at the Hugh Wood­ing Law School. He was ad­mit­ted to prac­tise as an at­tor­ney-at-law in Trinidad and To­ba­go on Oc­to­ber 20, 2000.

His ca­reer in­cludes pri­vate prac­tice at Dip­nar­ine Ram­per­sad and Co and Lex Caribbean, ser­vice as Se­nior Le­gal Of­fi­cer at the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty, and ap­point­ments as As­sis­tant Reg­is­trar and Deputy Mar­shal. Since 2017, he served as Mas­ter of the High Court in the Fam­i­ly and Chil­dren Di­vi­sion and, from 2018, as Pre­sid­ing Ju­di­cial Of­fi­cer at the Chil­dren Drug Treat­ment Court (North). He is a Fel­low of the Char­tered In­sti­tute of Ar­bi­tra­tors and a mem­ber of sev­er­al re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al ju­di­cial as­so­ci­a­tions.

Madame Jus­tice Thomp­son most re­cent­ly served as an As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions at the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions. She earned an Up­per Sec­ond Ho­n­ours LLB from the Cave Hill Cam­pus of The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies in 2005 and her Le­gal Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate in 2007. In 2021, she com­plet­ed an MSc in Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Pol­i­cy with dis­tinc­tion at the Lon­don School of Eco­nom­ics and Po­lit­i­cal Sci­ence as a Trinidad and To­ba­go Chevening Schol­ar.

Her pro­fes­sion­al back­ground in­cludes work as a Ju­di­cial Re­search As­sis­tant in the Mag­is­tra­cy, the Court of Ap­peal and the Fam­i­ly Court, fol­lowed by ser­vice at the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, where she rose to As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor in 2022. She has al­so rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go in hock­ey at the Un­der-21 Pan Amer­i­can tour­na­ment and re­mains ac­tive in the sport through the Paragon Hock­ey Club.