Authors' Reflections

• Author: Peter Jamadar/Elron Elahie/Richard Jamadar
• Pages: 93-95

93

Soosalu G, Henwood S and Deo A, “Head, Heart, and Gut in Decision MAKING: Development

of a Multiple Brain Preference Questionnaire” (2019) 9 SAGE Open

Statements of Principle and Guidelines for Judicial Conduct (Judiciary of the Republic of

Trinidad and Tobago 2017)

Wilber K and others, Integral Life Practice (Integral Books 2008)

Wilber K, Integral Spirituality: A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and

Postmodern World (Integral Books 2007)

AUTHORS’ REFLECTIONS

Justice Peter Jamadar

In my quest as a judicial officer to become more independent and impartial, and to act in

greater integrity, this conscious intent has revealed the reality of the contrary. To be

human is to be born, to grow, and to develop in intersecting cultures and environments

of interdependencies and biases, where preferences, self-interests, and separation

fragment integrity. Perfect independence, impartiality, and integrity are seemingly

forever unattainable. Always out of reach.

Yet, as a judicial officer, I aspire towards their attainment and application, especially in

the core work of decision-making, as indeed in all of living. This is our duty arising out

of the oath we take, and the compulsion of our ethics as judicial officers.

This quest has led me to mindfulness as intentional awarenessing, and its usefulness in

cultivating enhanced degrees of situational and intersectional awareness, both within

myself and the socio-legal cultures I inhabit, as well as of what is continuously unfolding

in the environments around me including my own external behaviours and interpersonal

interactions. In fact, of my judging! Still far from being perfect, through the practice of

Intentional awarenessing I have discovered greater spaciousness and enlarged

opportunities for more impartial and independent decision-making, that is at the same

time increasingly aware, sensitive, and responsive to emerging situational realities and

changes. Indeed, this even in relation to the law as law, and how it intersects with society.

Maybe most profoundly, I have found an improved capacity to pause, listen, hear, see,

reflect, and choose; to change. Greater freedom from my practiced hubris. Refreshingly,