Jamaican is new chief justice for the TCI
JAMAICAN Margaret Ramsay-Hale has been appointed chief justice of the Turks and Caicos Islands, the TCI Sun reported in its online edition yesterday. The newspaper reported Ramsay-Hale will take up her appointment later this year after Governor Peter Beckingham accepted the recommendation of the Judicial Service Commission to appoint her as the next chief justice of the TCI.
Justice Ramsay-Hale, daughter of prominent Jamaican attorney Ian Ramsay, QC, was previously appointed as judge of the Turks and Caicos Islands Supreme Court in November 2011.
She was first admitted to practise as an attorney-at-law in Jamaica in 1991, and was appointed to the bench in Jamaica in 1995.
The TCI Sun said the commission also accepted a recommendation that the offer of outgoing Chief Justice Edwin Goldsbrough to stay on for a few months until a successor to Justice Ramsay-Hale as a judge of the Supreme Court is found.
Chairman of the Judicial Service Commission is Justice Lensley Wolfe. Its other members are Sir David Simmons and Sir Brian Alleyne.
“I have offered this position to Justice Ramsay-Hale this week, and I am very pleased that she has accepted it. I am certain that she will bring a great deal of energy as well as professional wisdom and experience to this very important job in the Turks and Caicos Islands. I would also like to pay tribute to the work of current Chief Justice Goldsborough. He has overseen the judicial process at a difficult and demanding time for the country, and Turks and Caicos has benefited greatly from his contribution,” the newspaper quoted Governor Beckingham.
A former chief magistrate of the Cayman Islands, Justice Ramsay-Hale holds a degree in economics from the London School of Economics, in addition to her law degree from the University of the West Indies.
She previously served as magistrate of the Family Court in St James, Jamaica, and later as a resident magistrate for the parish. She then moved to Cayman Islands to serve as a magistrate of the Summary Court and she sat as an acting judge of the Grand Court for several months.
