Your suggestions for punishing Alair Shepherd’s behaviour also amounts to a slap on the wrist. He should have been treated like any common lout who goes to court and misbehaves. A non lawyer behaving in this manner would have been arrested and taken back before the same judge and asked to show reasons why he should not be imprisoned for contempt.

I understand that QCs have privilege in courts but that privilege does not extend the inviting a judge to kiss his behind. Any other person would have been in Dodds Prison and by now several of his fellow inmates would have taken up the offer.

Sometime ago, I had reason to go before the court and when I discovered who the judge would have been; I told my lawyer that I had a difficulty with that particular judge hearing my case. My lawyer went into the judge’s chambers and made my objection known. I was then summoned by the marshal and I went into the judge’s chambers. He asked if I had a difficulty with him hearing my case and I politely answered, “Yes sir”. He then asked if I think that he would betray his oath, and again I answered, “Yes sir”. He then carried on for a while, disrespecting me I might add but I never occurred to me that I had options. Then again, I do not wear silk.

Alair Shepherd should be waking up at Dodds this morning: justice demands no less.

What reason Crusoe for such disrepect? Next you would say that he has a “constitutional Right”
Right Crusoe!

The issue here is about a senior lawyer who has been conferred the privilege of QC showing disrespect to a sitting judge. This is the issue.

@ Sir William

We are all members of Mahogany Coconut. However on this matter we would want to present the other side of this issue. A side that might appear to the unsophisticated to support Alair Shepherd. We plead that we have no such brief. Our point is that there is a pervasive kind of ‘unearned respect’ assumed by those in authority in Barbados and expected from all others. An artificial construction that on the one hand allows intemperate, politically affiliated, unschooled, powfle-foolish, classist, overly biased people to sit in judgement of others. On the other hand, it presides over decades of police beatings, torture, unfair punishment, illegal detention, illegal killings, a backward prison system, the incarceration of poor people. In short, a criminal-justice system that represents the modern slave economy.

We are well aware that our comments will attract the ire of a dominant current in the Barbadian society that has law & order as a central pillar to its conservative or monarchist leanings. Amongst this current are mainly poor people who receive no real benefits from the system they slavishly support. But yes, it is high time that Bajans tell these people in high places to kiss our collective asses. These people who demand an unearned respect. Elites who have been sucking the life’s blood from the society. A wider societal rejection of all that they stand for will not finish with a ‘kiss my ass’ but a more just society. Not only judges, general disrespect should be properly directed at lying politicians, policemen, priests, backward teachers, custom officers, credit union leaders, workers’ union leaders, useless university academicians. All the people who continue a system that for the system’s sake. KISS OUR ASSES!

It is the ultimate disrespect that one individual can show to another far less a perfessional t another. I disagree some what with David on the isssue of gender. He should be reminded that women of the pass more so than men engaged in this form of misconduct towards each other.
The issue does not speak to the gender of the victim but more so to the mentality of Mr Shepherd. He has certainly loss all respect for himself and therefore seems incapable of respecting any one irrespective of their gender. In essence he has also disprected himself sand he is male.
What I is believe that this behaviour should never be tolerated and what ever legal sanctions can be imposed he should face the heaviest of penalities.
I also believe that any right thinking Barbadian should desist from doing business with him. This is certainly a national disgrace.

@ David
Your point in anti-developmental. Instead of prison the CJ should ask Shepherd to be a Judge.

@ David
The report going around also suggests he was provoked ! But does the CJ have the authority to do as you suggest, justifiable though it might be?

@ David

All of your comments so far are aimed at the protection of the status quo. That is a predictable response. Why not try using this as a teachable moment?

The two of them ain’t like one another so if in private meeting Alair beg she to kiss is ass, what the problem? All fair in love and war. How many judgements is Alair awaiting from this judge and what is that average length of the delayed justice?

The report going around is that she turned up for court at 12:30 pm that day and Shepherd blew his top .

@ David

On this one we can say ‘KISS MY ASS’ over and over again. And you can’t moderate (smile).

@ David

We were not aware that you were the self-appointed protector of a wicked system. We always thought that social justice drove your thinking. It is a wider social justice that is needed not the consolidation of the personal feelings of a particular judge. Or the reflexive defense of the establishment. An establishment that Shepherd is part and parcel of.

@can’t wait

The point here is that a senior lawyer skinning their pouch at a judge adds to the problem. He should have pointed his anus at the CJ if he was so moved or the Registrar.

@Bush tea

AS(S) helped to make the system what it is. What did he attempt to do in his capacity as President of the Bar Association? Like most people we only get emotional when it hits home. Didn’t Caswell comment that Richards and AS has a long running disagreement going on here? Imagine after years of pumping money in education, paying 60-70K to educate these lawyers at UWI what do we get? A moribund system. And who make up a significant seating in our parliament?

In the mean time our nation’s youth are looking on.

Alair has always struck me as disrespectful to the people of Barbados, his bread and butter…..the reason?………….he is too well respected……Sonia Richards is a wimp and has to shoulder some blame……..I would have had him spending a week at Dodds for his nasty ways…………I am sure he could have handled to situation better, being a lawyer and all and also a qc. That’s what you get in a system where respect is one-sided.

ac | April 13, 2013 at 7:19 AM |

Alair license should be suspended AND he should Issue a Public Apology to the Judge.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

There is a list of attorneys published who do not obey the law and do not pay their registration fee to obtain their practice certificates.

Each day that one appears before a judge to “practise” his/her profession and the judge listens to him/her is another day that the whole system is debased.

No one seems to want to deal with the mess, neither the Bar nor the Attorneys who toss out unconstitutionality as a reason for their transgression.

The CCJ raises the issue of delay of judges repeatedly when cases come to them …… nothing seems to get done.

There are constant complaints for the Registry.

We see Plantation Deeds repeatedly referring to the alleged fraud perpetrated on citizens.

All stakeholders in the system have a problem.

Nothing seems to happen.

Somethings gotta give!!

There may well come a time when Alair Shepherd is recognised as the catalyst for change.

@ David
“What did he attempt to do in his capacity as President of the Bar Association? Like most people we only get emotional when it hits home. Didn’t Caswell comment that Richards and AS has a long running disagreement going on here?”
*************
Come on David…. If you go down that line – …Bushie can be devastating outside the off stump….

You remember that the same Caswell was effectively assistant CJ?
How come with all that he knows he did not change things then?

…the answer is that the SYSTEM is stronger than any individual.

Crooked systems can make the best of us look like serious criminal morons to the unknowing public….
Wuh everybody thought that the current (preciously radical) president of the Bar would have changed things too….
….he like he can’t even change the drink menu… LOL

An old boss of Bushie once advised that wisdom means than when dealing with kings, one should be royal. When dealing with saints, be good…..but when dealing with Brass bowls…..moon. 🙂

@Bushie

Isn’t the radical who leads the Bar Association now a QC?

@ Bushie

You are a natural progressive. These minions are unworthy of your presence

You bunch of self-righteous grandstanding pillars of the community with your mock indignation. Yes, Shepherd’s actions are crass and beneath his anachronistic QC title, but what about the daily Kiss My Backside shown to the entire population by those at the top?! Put him in jail? What about Parris, Taylor, caught red-handed lawyers stealing from clients, those whose crime is mismanagement of a nation? Barbados has far bigger, far more catastrophic issues to deal with this outrage at buffoonery; at least he didn’t brandish a weapon, or curse into an open mike for the world to hear.

It seems you all don’t know the laws of barbados,a private citizen can tell a judge out of chambers to kiss his ass ,but cannot do the same to a police officer,let me state that no laws were broken by mr shepherd…

I have to hear the whole story first.

@ David

By the way. We think that Bajans have the most beautiful lexicon of curse words in the world. We are compiling a book of them and consider ourselves as highly proficient in the same, as you might have notices. Are we going to waiting for the English to steal our language and annex it to theirs? Why should this most adroit language to demonize or criminalize or not used regularly in public places? Shepherd’s foundational expression will rightly serve to give legitimacy to all that we could be.

Good morning all,I am just an ordinary store clerk,who had matters dealing with the court system which is not fair to the ordaniry person like myself.Magistrates are never early and its ok but if the accused is late a warrant is issued furthermore had i done the same as the QC my ASS would be still at dodds on remand until the magistrate(s) felt like hearing or seeing me.

DAVID

“No free passes any longer”

….but that does not apply to your BARBADOS LABOUR PARTY.