A high-powered team of medical and legal experts has been assembled to address the issue of mandatory vaccination at a special virtual forum scheduled for Thursday, July 8th, 2021 from 4 pm – 6 pm.
The virtual forum is jointly organized by the Organization of Commonwealth Caribbean Bar Associations (OCCBA) and the OECS Bar Association under the theme, “Mandatory Vaccination: Legal, Justified or Effective?” It is open to the public.
The seasoned four-member panel of two medical and two legal experts comprises Dr. Peter Figueroa, Professor of Public Health, Epidemiology and HIV/AIDS at the University of the West Indies, Kingston (Jamaica); Dr.George Mitchell former Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and Co-ordinator of Grenada’s Covid 19 Response Team; Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine, Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of the West Indies (UWI-Trinidad) and specialist in Labour Law, Public Law and Law and Legal Systems; Dr. Lloyd Barnett OJ, Human Rights Advocate, Constitutional Expert and founding member of the Regional and Judicial Legal Services Commission (RJLSC) of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
The session will be moderated by M Georgia Gibson Henlin, QC, who is Conference Co-chair of the Jamaica Bar Association (JBA) Continuing Legal Education (CLE) committee and a Council Member of the JBA. Each panelist will present for a maximum of 15 minutes, followed by what is expected to be a rich interactive discussion at the end of all the presentations.
The joint virtual forum is part of continuing efforts on the part of the two umbrella bar associations to raise public awareness provide critical and relevant information and encourage public engagement on the very topical and contentious issue of mandatory vaccination. Members of the public are encouraged to be part of this important activity in which judges and lawyers from throughout the region are expected to attend, from the Bahamas in the north to Guyana in the south.