| Retired High Court Judge, Don Mitchell, of Anguilla, has returned to the Bench having been appointed as an Acting Justice of the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal for two years in the first instance. |
The oaths of office were administered to Justice Mitchell on Thursday, September 8, by His Excellency the Governor, Alistair Harrison, at his office at Old Ta. Mr. Harrison offered best wishes to him as an Acting Justice of the Court of Appeal. “I know that he will do a very thorough job and I wish him well,” the Governor said afterwards.” I am delighted that the President and the Vice President of the Bar Association have joined me on this auspicious occasion. I think that is a very nice courtesy accorded by the Bar Association and I thank them for it.”
President of the Bar, Barrister-at-Law Yvette Wallace, congratulated Mr. Mitchell on behalf of the Bar Association. “We look forward to his very educated judgment coming out over the next two years,” she said. “Congratulations, Justice Mitchell.” Commenting earlier on his appointment, Justice Mitchell spoke to The Anguillian as follows: “Forty years ago, in September 1971, Mr. Nathaniel Hodge, Editor of The Democrat newspaper in St. Kitts, wrote a little story about my call to the Bar. He wrote that I said then:The Judge had been so kind as to remind me, when he was calling me to the Bar, of the high standard that I am expected to uphold in my practice at the Bar. I can only say that while I have observed that no professional person deliberately begins his career by transgressingagainst his profession’s code of ethics, he sometimes comes to do so through mere thoughtlessness until, at last, simply because he never thought about it, finds himself branded as an unethical legal practitioner. I know that I start off no better than any such person. That is why I am so glad, and feel myself so honoured, to be allowed by my learned friend and uncle, Mr. Frank Henville of Basseterre, the privilege of working with him and having at least the chance to learn from him how to conduct myself properly in my profession; until hopefully, by some process of osmosis, I shall have absorbed due respect for the law and be, as he is, habitually ethical. Mr. Justice Mitchell continued: “I feel really honoured, and particularly proud after forty years, to find that the judicial authorities have been sufficiently satisfied by my attention to my legal duties and obligations that they have now appointed me to the very rarefied and distinguished position of acting as a Judge of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, where I will continue to serve not only Anguilla, but the nine other states, for the next two years in the first instance.” Justice Mitchell first served as a Judge of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court between 1997 and 2004 and worked in all nine islands. Prior to that, he served asMagistrate in Anguilla from 1976 to 1980, following which he went into private practice until 1999 when he became a full-time Judge having acted previously in St. Vincent in 1997 and St. Lucia in 1998 |
