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Kenneth Benjamin (judge)
Caribbean jurist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Kenneth Andrew Charles Benjamin (born 19 March 1955) is a Caribbean jurist. A dual national of Guyana and Antigua and Barbuda, he served as Chief Justice of Belize from 15 September 2011[1][2] to 20 March 2020.[3]
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Career
Benjamin was born on 19 March 1955[3] in Georgetown, Guyana.[4] In 1980 and 1981, Benjamin served as a magistrate in Georgetown, Guyana. He went on to serve as Assistant Judge Advocate for the Guyana Defence Force.[2] From 1988, he continued his work as a judge in Antigua, including from 1991 to 1993 as Chief Magistrate of Antigua.[2][5] Following that, he was named as a judge of the High Court of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court.[5] In this capacity he served in Montserrat and the British Virgin Islands in the succeeding years.[2] From 2002 to 2007, Benjamin's position as ECSC High Court Judge took him to Grenada; he was succeeded there by Francis Cumberbatch.[5] In 2007, he relocated to St. Lucia to become the presiding judge of the High Court of St. Lucia's criminal division.[2]
In July 2011, following the retirement of Abdulai Conteh, Attorney-General B. Q. Pitts announced that Benjamin would be Belize's new Chief Justice.[2] In the interim, Samuel Lungole Awich served as acting CJ.[6] Pitts indicated his hopes that Benjamin, at the time 56, would be able to hold his position until he reached the mandatory retirement age of 65.[2][7]
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Personal life
Benjamin graduated from the Hugh Wooding Law School of the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago in 1977. He is married and has a daughter and a son.[2]
References
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