Judges who serve on the bench of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC) could be afforded the opportunity to stay on after the current retirement age of 65.
Attorney General Steadroy Benjamin said he intends to lobby for the threshold to be increased to 72.
He explained that the current age hinders those who are still capable of performing their judicial duties.
“I am telling my colleagues in the region… we must pass legislation to increase the age of retirement to 72. And the judges who want to retire before that can make an application to do so,” Benjamin said on Thursday.
“We can’t afford to lose talent.”
The Attorney General said the move was “something we need to do”.
“At the age of 72, persons are still very young,” he added, giving an example of an 89-year-old associate who he described as “still very sharp”.
Last year, ECSC judges began to benefit from better retirement packages with the passage of the ECSC’s Judicial Officers Pensions Act 2021.
The aim was to bring a level of parity to the packages and make the job more attractive in a bid to draw more court officers to the post.
In the past, the ECSC has often had to settle for part-time judges or those who were only able to serve when they were close to the end of their private practice careers.
The hope is to alleviate that and widen the pool of available judges.
The retirement age for judges within the Caribbean Court of Justice already stands at 72.