Chosen One

Don't Panic, please. The country is this much closer to getting its DPP. And a state prosecutor from a sister Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country will get to Dictate Palmary Positions in her new position.

"A woman was successful. She's a foreign national…from the Caribbean," a high ranking official source from the ministry of legal affairs told The Sun.

This woman is the Guyanese Paula Gilford who, along with the Antigua-based Dominican magistrate and former police officer, Asquith Riviere, and the locally-based Celia Delauney, was interviewed by the ministry of legal affairs for the position of director of public prosecutions. The post of DPP becomes vacant next month when Gene Pestaina, 65, goes on pre-retirement leave before retiring in July.

Very little is known of the successful candidate except for the fact that she is a state prosecutor in her native Guyana. She is expected to be informed any time now that she is the chosen one.

"We are in the process of writing to her to see if she will accept the terms and conditions," the official source told The Sun. The source did not disclose the terms.

If Gilford accepts the position, she will replace a man who is the first person to have been appointed to the post of DPP and reach the retirement age of 65. A former acting assistant superintendent of police, Pestaina became the first police officer here to become a lawyer after he completed his studies in 1985.

The retiring DPP said he took some tough decisions during his tenure, including the recent discontinuance of a murder case against Sarah-Lyn Augustine who killed her children. This controversial decision led to strong public criticism of Pestaina.