The Nation today announced the appointment of the Attorney General, Mr Anthony Fernando, as a new Justice of Appeal in the highest court of the land. His deputy, Mr Ronny Govinden has been appointed as the new Attorney General. Both appointments take effect on the 1st January 2009.
Mr Fernando was educated in Sri Lanka and has been practising law since 1979. He moved to Seychelles in 1991 when he was appointed as a Senior State Counsel. He rose through the ranks and was appointed Attorney General in 1999. Mr Govinden was educated in Mauritius and started his law career in 1998 as a State Counsel. He too rose through the ranks until his present appointment.
With Mr Fernando leaving the Attorney General's Office, many will now be concerned about the lack of manpower in that department. The Attorney General's office will now be functioning with half of the maximum number of State Counsels. No BVC or LPC graduates are expected back in the country until the middle of 2010, none of which are Government funded, this follows from the Government's unwillingness to send Seychellois students overseas to study law and talk is now rife that a new piece of legislation will soon be passed to allow certain foreigners to automatically qualify in the Seychelles as Attorneys-at-Law, making this the only country in the world where a foreigner can qualify as a lawyer without the necessary qualifications and without undergoing pupillage, a priviledge that will not be extended to any of the returning Seychellois graduates.
The Robing Room is the official blog of the Seychelles Legal Environment Website (www.geocities.com/ptikoy), the only website about the Seychelles Legal Environment that is constantly updated.
