HE IS NO stranger to the public. The new president of the Barbados Bar Association has worn many hats, including being an actor and, in recent times, a television personality.
In his first interview since taking up the top position, Andrew Pilgrim talks to Associate Managing Editor Tim Slinger about his vision for the legal body. He also comments on the bad apples in the fraternity and gives his opinion on the current controversial issue about the appointment of Barbados’ next Chief Justice.
Q: You are the new president of the Barbados Bar Association. What are some of the items on the front burner?
Pilgrim: I hope I will be able to bring a level of frankness and openness to the post and that my gregarious nature will also help to bring a level of friendship within the Bar and a friendship with the public that will hopefully foster a better image for the Bar and better relations at the Bar. And one of the big things we want is to make justice as accessible and as swiftly available as possible.
A lot of people have concerns about whether the courts really function or not. We want to be meeting with the powers that be as much as possible and trying to find ways to facilitate making justice seem available and make the system work as much as possible. Inasmuch as lawyers can contribute to that and make that happen, we want to do that.
Q: Do you see your radical approach and no-nonsense attitude getting in the way of fostering or improving relationships with the association?
Pilgrim: Hopefully, I will be able to bring that no-nonsense approach towards anything the Bar has interest in, hopefully in a positive way. In the sense that, you know, sometimes being a radical one can be marginalized as being a maverick or being somebody who is a loose cannon. I do not want that messageto come across.
I want the message to come across that we are no-nonsense and that there are a lot of issues . . . the public has with the Bar, and lots of issues the Bar has with the court. We want to be able to meet those squarely and head on and deal with them.
Over the years, all the presidents have tried to tackle these issues and there has been success and I can’t re-invent the wheel. I can’t try to do things that people have found impossible, but I am hoping my style will help to assist in getting things done and making real progress.
Q: As a criminal lawyer over the years, I am sure there are some issues you would like to place on the front burner. Can you tell us about some of them?
Pilgrim: I think that not only as a criminal lawyer but as a lawyer in general. People have often had a lot to say about the Registry and how it works and the many delays. Many people will also focus on issues that I will consider important like parking at the Registry or the security system.?Those things may be important but it cannot be as important as a fellow’s right to get a hearing in the court. It cannot be as important as the question of delay.
A fellow wants to sue for $10 000 and it’s taking him five years to get it, and then he finds difficulty collecting his money after he gets a judgement five years after. It probably would be better if he said let me write off this debt. People have to feel that the courts work.
They also have to feel like this person is doing something wrong, I can go to the courts and get something right.?This wrong can be righted in the court, and those things have to happen in a timely fashion, if not they may as well not happen.
Q: One of the issues over the years with the profession is the many charges of misappropriation of clients’ funds by some lawyers. How do you plan to deal with this matter?
Pilgrim: Well, I think the former president Mr Leslie Haynes has focused on the amendment of the Legal Profession Bill in a big way and I want to carry that.
But I also want to encourage a level of transparency amongst lawyers and have disciplinary proceedings carried out and allow the public to know. We are not going to hide anything. The Bar has a duty to its members but at the same time if members run afoul of the law, we don’t want anybody to have this feeling that we are protecting them and shielding them from the law.
If a “fellah” thieving, let the court deal with it as it sees fit. Let the Disciplinary Committee deal with it as it sees fit. If there is a problem with a doctor [who] does a bad operation [it’s] very hard to find other doctors to say it was bad.?Give these people some money and let them go their way, for example, and, by the same token, people have always felt that lawyers will band together to protect each other.
And in a small society, that is difficult because quite often we will know each other or went to school with each other. But wrong is wrong and right is right. People need to feel that the man on the street is getting the same treatment as the lawyer and that the lawyers themselves are not going to do things to make that look any different.
Q: One the things that has always been echoed in the system is that you have an interest in politics. In fact, you are associated with one particular party and at one stage there were rumours that you were planning to contest [a seat]. Were you ever interested in politics? Do you have an interest in politics?
Pilgrim: When I was a little bit younger, or maybe a lot younger, I was very interested in politics, keen on it not only for the possibilities of contributions that one could make but also politics, like the law, is a theatre and my love for the theatre informs my association and affection for both of those things.
The idea of being able to talk on a platform, I think that is something that I would look forward to because I think I have the oratorical skills for it.
I know I can write because you know you might think you can translate one thing into another and you would think, oh, that is something I should be able to do and I have always felt that the way that party politics plays out in Barbados, those skills will be very useful.
But more and more over the years, I have come to the view that political meetings in Barbados – which is where that particular skill is most evident – are generally stand-up comedy and that is what they are.?And while I think I am a good stand-up comedian, I think I have shown that as a tent MC, I think that unfortunately our politics is reduced to a level now of stand-up comedy.
I always go every time there is an election or by-election. I go to both sides’ meetings and I listen to both sides to hear what is being said and, really, it seems that the most significant contributions are the most funny ones.
And there is still that sense in Barbados that politics is frivolous and it is a great divider. I don’t want to be part of anything frivolous and I don’t want to part of a great divider. So I made up my mind sometime ago that I will attempt to stay out of it and try to work on things that I can do that I can help people on both sides.
The other thing is that politics has always affected our decision-making where it should not. By the same token now, speaking for myself, while I have issues with the limitations of the law as it relates to chief justice, it looks funny when you do something like what we are doing now.
Talking about politics, therefore, I want to retain my neutrality. I want to be able to say to Owen Arthur, you doing nonsense; to Mia Mottley, you doing nonsense; Freundel Stuart, you doing nonsense; Adriel Brathwaite, you doing nonsense; because Barbados is so polarized that the moment that people start to think Pilgrim like he is a Dee – ’cause I think one time there was a rumor that I was running in St Joseph, then there was a rumor one time, I was running in the City, for different parties.
Once in Barbados you accept a political hat, everything you say after that is coloured by that.
Whereas I hope that if I say that the selection process for judges is being abused by both parties, I want people to say, well, Pilgrim talking sense, and I believe him because he is a man that got sense. I don’t want people to say we believe him because he is a Bee or a Dee or we don’t believe him because he is a Dee or we don’t believe him because he is Bee.
Q: Do you feel the judiciary should be distanced from politics across the board?
Pilgrim: If at anytime I am appointed to sit in judgement on a people, that is a massive responsibility.?If you sit in that position and you feel in any way obliged to somebody for giving you that pick, you know, let me put it in basic language, there is a real danger. If you feel in your mind that I get this pick because the PM send me here and then there is an action against the PM – because you get actions against the governments, against prime ministers – will a party in that cause feel, ‘look, I don’t have a chance ‘cause this man is the PM’s boy’? That is the danger we must always be fighting.
We do not want to surrender our society to the extent that a politician can blackball a fellow, as they used to say, and then that fellow gone through the eddoes. We must feel that when you go in front a court, if you head got on locks, if you is a baldhead, if you is a Bee, if you is a Dee, if you is a Cee, that you are going to get a fair shake . . . .
Q: As the new president of the Bar Association, what would you want to suggest as a fair deal for the selection process in terms of judges? What do you think would be accepted as fair deal?
Pilgrim: What you need is to distance the appointment as much as possible from the political directorate.?So you really need a body that is chaired by a person who does not rely on the PM or the AG to appoint them and appointees who are there and who hold their power regardless of the change of government to make those decisions. You want that decision to be transparent and distant from the Cabinet or the prime minister.
Q: You, throughout your career, have had some bumps and thumps. I remember one time you had a clash with a judge, and then you took a trip away from everything. Tell me about that in terms of what were the benefits of it, and was it a chance to do some introspection?
Pilgrim: First off, the trip was not a plan to escape because the conflict with the judges, I think, came largely sometime around 2002 or maybe even before that. Then, in 2005, I started preparing to make that move. Having said that, the trip to Africa a whole year without working at all other than any work I did was volunteer work on projects in Africa, nothing at all pertaining to law or pertaining to looking for income.
So I didn’t have to study one case for that entire year. I didn’t have anything on my mind except how to function as a human being with other human beings. That was my focus and to be with my wife. That was my only focus in that entire year.
So I think I benefited tremendously from it and it helped me to learn to be more diplomatic and yet more forceful.?And one of the things I got out of it was getting to see what I regard as my homeland because I don’t regard England or America where we are kind of programmed to feel that these places are very important. So from that point of view, it was a very beautiful trip.
Q: Finally, the Andrew Pilgrim we knew of ten, 15 years ago, the Andrew Pilgrim now, is there a difference?
Pilgrim: His hair is a lot whiter, but other than that, I would like to think essentially the same person. I hope that I will still retain my forceful nature and my belief in standing up for things that are right. I hope that those things will remain with me right through.
