Pres­i­dent of the As­sem­bly of South­ern Lawyers (ASL) Saira Lakhan has called for a smooth and trans­par­ent tran­si­tion process af­ter Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie an­nounced his re­tire­ment yes­ter­day.

Af­ter 17 years of lead­ing the Ju­di­cia­ry, Archie has an­nounced that he will re­tire dur­ing this law term. He said when he be­came Chief Jus­tice in 2008, the re­tire­ment age was 65, and that is what he pre­pared for. The manda­to­ry re­tire­ment age is now 70 years.

How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted that in the last two years, he has seen his life’s jour­ney with greater clar­i­ty, and while be­ing Chief Jus­tice is what he does, it’s not who he is. He al­so be­lieves that it is time for fresh ideas for the Ju­di­cia­ry and is pass­ing on the ba­ton.