Retired Justice of Appeal Zainool Hosein has been appointed the new chairman of the Integrity Commission. A press release issued yesterday stated Hosein was expected to be sworn in today at the Office of the President, St Ann’s.
The commission’s former chairman Ken Gordon left office on October 31 at the end of his three-year term. The release said Hosein graduated from the University of Sheffield in 1962, spent time in the legal department of the Derbyshire County Council and was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1966.
In Trinidad, he joined the law chambers of Queen’s Counsel Tajmool Hosein. Ten years later he moved back to England and set up civil and criminal practice in the Midland and Oxford circuit. In 1983 he returned to T&T and was appointed a judge of the High Court.
Ten years later he was elevated to the Court of Appeal and presided over both criminal and civil appeals.
Second time around
Hosein was appointed to the commission by President Max Richards in May 2009 but resigned hours later, saying the President had told him he would be made deputy chairman.
Instead NIB executive director Jeffrey Mc Farlane was made deputy chairman but he too resigned after questions were raised over his eligibility to serve on the commission as he was a member of a state board.
The chairman, Fr Henry Charles, also resigned, on the ground that the RC Archbishop had said canon law ruled he could not serve. Shortly before, Fr Charles had been accused of plagiarism in his newspaper columns. A fourth commissioner, Lylla Bada, also resigned.