PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – Seated among the first panel of six judges on stage for yesterday’s ceremonial launch of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) was its sole female jurist, Desiree Bernard, a Guyana-born Caribbean woman of many “firsts”.

At 66, Madame Justice Bernard, who qualified as a solicitor back in 1964, has the unique distinction among female members of the region’s legal profession, of having been the first to serve in her native Guyana as:

. the first female high court judge of the Supreme Court in 1980;

. that was to be followed by her meteoric rise – between 1992 and 2001 – as the first woman chief justice; and then

. first female chancellor of the judiciary in the Caribbean and entire Commonwealth in 2001.

Now she has taken her place, with distinction, as the first female judge of the CCJ, having demitted office as chancellor of the Guyana judiciary last month.

Bernard is single and has an adopted daughter, Carol Ann Bernard. The CCJ jurist has held membership in a number of regional and international organisations, and was a founding secretary of the Caribbean Women’s Association (CARIWA). She is also a former president of the Organisation of Commonwealth Caribbean Bar Associations (OCCBA).

For her exceptional contribution to the improvement of the status of women and to the development and practice of law, Bernard has received a number of national awards, among them the Cacique Crown of Honour and the Order of Roraima, Guyana’s third and second highest national awards.

Sitting with her under the leadership of CCJ President Michael de la Bastide are the other following judges of the regional court:

. Justice Rolston Nelson of Trinidad and Tobago, a former Appeal Court Judge;

. Duke Pollard of Guyana, an acknowledged expert jurist in international law and former director of the Caricom Legislative Drafting Facility;

. Justice Adrian Saunders of St Vincent and the Grenadines, a graduate of the Hugh Wooding Law School who chairs the St Lucia Court Connected Mediation Pilot Project.

The two non-Caribbean jurists, who are to be robed in July when they take up their duties are:

. Professor David Hayton of England, a leading authority in the United Kingdom and Europe on the law of trusts; and

. Professor Jacob Wit of The Netherlands, who has earned an international reputation as organiser of, or presenter at, important international legal conferences in various territories of the Dutch, French and English-speaking Caribbean.