Chief Justice Anthony Smellie

Plenary Speaker, the honourable Anthony Smellie, whose presentation will be entirled "Judicial Independence: The Ultimate Safeguard," has been a Judge of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands since February 1993. In June 1998 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Cayman Islands.

Included among his responsibilities as a Judge (and continuing as Chief Justice) is that as Central Authority for the Cayman Islands Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty with the United States of America.

In August 1991 he was appointed as one of Her Majesty’s Counsel.

Earlier appointments held by Chief Justice Smellie included those as Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions for Jamaica, Solicitor General and Acting Attorney General for the Cayman Islands.

Chief Justice Smellie is a graduate of the Faculty of Law of the University of the West Indies (Barbados (1975)) and of the Norman Manley Law School (Jamaica (1977)) where he obtained his post-graduate professional qualifications. He is also an alumnus of the International Development Law Institute which is based in Rome, Italy. He served as an associate tutor at the Norman Manley Law School from 1979-1983.

He is an honorary fellow of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies based in London, England and a patron of the Oxford Journal on Commonwealth Law published by Oxford University.

He is also an Honorary Bencher, of Gray's Inn, Inns of Court, London, England

Chief Justice Smellie has attended and spoken at several international conferences covering various subject-matters including Human Rights, Restorative Justice, Mutual Legal Assistance, Insurance Regulation, the Administration of the Criminal Law, International Taxation policies; Financial Regulation in the British Overseas Territories and the work of the Financial Action Task Force. Some of his speaking engagements include the first and second UNDCP/UWI Judicial Symposia for Caribbean Judges on the subject of money laundering law and policy in Barbados in August 1999 and in Nassau, Bahamas in August 2000; the first United Nations Offshore Forum on money laundering, Cayman Islands, March 2000; the Cayman Islands Bankers Conference on Financial Regulation, November 2000 and the U.N.D.P Roundtable Forum on National Human Rights issues in Kingston Jamaica on 7 December 2001; 11th United Nations World Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice held in Bangkok, Thailand, during the period 18th – 25th April 2005; the Seminar on Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering for Member States of the Organization of American States, hosted by the United States Department of Justice on 2-5th May 2007 at the Sofitel Hotel in Miami; a presentation to the Human Rights Symposium, Nairobi, Kenya, September 2007; a presentation to the Trusts and Estates Litigation Forum in Provence, France, February 2008; Trusts and Litigation Conference Symposium, London, October 2009; and the Insol Conference on Cross-border Insolvency, Singapore, March 2011;

In September 2001 the Chief Justice hosted in the Cayman Islands, the first Caribbean Conference on Human Rights under the auspices of the United Nations Project of the Decade of Human Rights Education. In July 2007, he hosted the Caribbean Heads of Judiciary Conference.

In his earlier capacity as acting Attorney General and as a Judge Justice Smellie served as one of the representatives of the Cayman Islands to the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force which is the Regional division of the Financial Action Task Force of the Group of 7 Industrialised Nations.

In January 1996 Chief Justice Smellie (then as a representative of the Caribbean FATF) participated in the second Mutual Evaluation of the financial, legal and law enforcement systems of the United States of America.

The Chief Justice is listed by the UNDCP as a Consultant on the subject of anti-money laundering law and policy.

In July of 2006, the University of Liverpool conferred on Chief Justice Smellie an honorary Doctor of Laws degree (Honoris Causa).