WE have recently raised the issue of why we are losing some of our most talented and hard-working people in the continuing massive brain drain.

Obviously, qualified Jamaicans may opt to ply their trade abroad in the global labour market in search of higher salaries, greater professional growth not available in Jamaica or just for a different work experience.

Our editorials have pointed to negative factors in the Jamaican work environment and jealousies and animosities against those who seek to return. And we have bemoaned the lack of effort to retain professionals trained here and regain those who are abroad.

The perverse bias to recruiting and promoting local residents in preference to Jamaicans who happen to be abroad has contributed to xenophobic recruitment policies.

We are proud when we learn of the brilliant achievements of Jamaicans in the international arena. Yet we do not rue their absence from their homeland nor do we find out why they left to work overseas. We glibly assume that they prefer to be in foreign countries than in their country of birth. But on closer examination, we can see that in most cases the push factors in Jamaica were more important than the pull factors of being in “foreign”.

The case of the judiciary is an interesting case. Judges are recruited almost exclusively from lawyers in the public sector. This puts those willing to leave the more lucrative environs of private practice at a disadvantage. The result is that we are not selecting from the full pool of legal practitioners. The consequence of this approach to the “bench” and some antiquated rules on age limits and ineligibility to return to practice is that legal luminaries like Messrs Viv Blake and Hugh Small end up as high court judges in The Bahamas and judges still in their prime, like Mr Boyd Carey, are lost to our higher courts but serve with distinction elsewhere.

We are justly proud of the accomplishment of our illustrious jurist Patrick Robinson at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). He completed his three-year tenure as president of the ICTY and was lauded as “a remarkable leader who has demonstrated a commitment to due process and fairness”.

Judge Robinson is a barrister of law who was educated at Jamaica College and Middle Temple in the United Kingdom. He attained a BA from University College of the West Indies and a bachelor’s and master’s in international law from the University of London.

Why did a man of such talent not become part of the judiciary in Jamaica? How or why did we allow such a man to leave the country? Are we making any efforts to get him back, to Jamaica to serve one of the higher courts? We certainly hope that no effort is being spared to this end. No matter how good our “bench”, a man with such experience and qualifications can surely make a invaluable contribution.

We hope that it is mere gossip that when the Government of Jamaica contemplated appointing him to a higher court there were those who said he should start at the lowest level of the judiciary.

Mr Patrick Robinson is an international judge, but he is certainly not “Your Honour” in his own country.