The body of professionals charged with the responsibility of protecting the interest of the Court is fragmented according to a veteran lawyer on the island.
Senior Counsel Anthony Astaphan has intimated that the Dominica Bar Association(DBA) is not the united force that it ought to be.
A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit openly expressed his disappointment with the DBA, after according to him it failed to condemn the attacks leveled at Justice Bernie Stephenson from certain quarters of the public.
Astaphan and advocate of the Dominica Labour Party (DLP) has accused the body of playing politics.
“The Bar Association has not played politics with the Court. The Bar Association has played politics with itself. It has been divided along party lines. There is no question about that. As a result, there has not been any commentary or press releases on the assault of the Court.
“Everybody is trying to play politics with this issue but they should not play politics with the Court. Lawyers take an oath and we have a duty and an obligation to protect the integrity of the Court,” he stated.
According to Astaphan, lawyers must come out in defense of the Court when necessary.
“As I did in Antigua after the decision of the Court of Appeal when the then political leader of the Antigua Labour Party, Lester Bird criticized the Court I called him right away. Even though I appeared before the Court of Appeal and lost I said that his criticism of the Court was wholly unjustified.
“We cannot criticize and condemn the institution because we do not like the judgment or the decision that they would make. You can say that you are disappointed in a judgment and say it is wrong but you cannot impute a political motive as they have been doing,” he reasoned.