6 New QCs, but 'in practice' only 5...

Well it looks despite 6 new Queen's Counsel appointments, Gibraltar will only actually benefit from having 5 of them in practice for the next 4 years.

The six new appointments are:

• Robert Vasquez
• Mark Isola
• Keith Azopardi
• Gilbert Licudi
• Michael Llamas
• Gillian Guzman

As a small place, it is only natural that many of thouse active in their own professional spheres are also active and prominant members of the comunity in many others, including politics.

Robert Vasquez has been increasingly politically active, almost putting his name forward on the ballot paper at the last general election, and Keith Azopardi led a full slate offering of the PDP.

This however takes us on to Gilbert Licudi.

While it is one thing to practice while being a member of Her Majesty's opposition in Gibraltar, it would be quite another to do so while sitting on the government benches in parliament. And that is exactly where Mr Licudi now finds himelf as Minister for Justice. As such we will have to wait at least another 4 years before we see Mr Licudi practicing in his silk.

Thouse thinking this results in us 'loosing' a QC can comfort themselves that, as new Leader of the Opposition, Peter Caruana QC might be again able to practice?

Watching the Foreign Affairs Select Committee

BBC Parliament will today be screening the evidence session of the UK Parliament Foreign Affairs Select Committee session from Wednesday.


In this session Chief Minister Peter Caruana was invited to appear before them to update the members on Gibraltar matters.

The Chief Minister covered a large array of Gibraltar matters and was also quizzed by the committee on general overseas territories issues.

During this Mr Caruana referred the committee to a definative ruling in the House of Lords concerning the Quark Fishing case. Although it does not involve the Rock in any way, it provides a definative ruling confirming the role of the Queen as Sovereign and Head of State of each Overseas Territory directly - with no reliance on the relationship between that territory and the UK.

And also that legally the appointment of Governors as HMs representative is direct appointment by the crown and not the UK government in any respect - any advice from the Forign Secretary is given in their capacity as a member of her majesties Privy Council, and NOT as a member of the Government of the United Kingdom.

The session was repeatedly extended as it progressed, in the end running for 1 and half hours and only forced to stop as the committee's MPs were due in the Commons chamber for Prime Ministers Questions (PMQs) starting just 4 minutes later.

The session is shown on BBC Parliament at 6pm UK time (7pm Gibraltar time) and runs for 90 minutes.

It can also be watched as an on demand video stream for up to a month at the ParliamentLive.TV website, however this recording is sadly missing the opening remarks of the session.