Newly appointed judge Sandra Kertzious practised as an attorney for years, but when she “fell in love“ with family law a more apt description would have been ‘counsellor,’ as she worked on mending the families of her clients. Even when she failed, she strove to help them understand that it was more than just winning or losing a court matter.
As the first judge who will be sitting in the much anticipated Family Court, Justice Kertzious will be wearing a different hat, although her mission remains the same and would never change.
For her human beings have been losing their “value of each other” and consequently there has been a “rapid deterioration of the respect that we should give each other.”
As she puts it, family law is about helping to mend families as opposed to them being broken.
The judge became an attorney in 1993, but for some years worked at the then Guyana National Cooperative Bank. It was not until 1999 that she started to do advocacy when she joined the George-town Legal Aid Clinic, eventually becoming its Managing Director.
“That is where I fell in love with the family law because at the Legal Aid Clinic you would have so many persons coming there… and at the time I started it was mainly the family matters… we had nothing to do with the criminal law and nothing to do with land law,” Justice Kertzious said in a recent interview.
For her it was not just about the law but rather about helping a person who might have given up on everything when they entered the clinic, but then left with hope after talking to the staff who helped them see “that it was not only the law that can make their lives reformed, it was about reaching out to each other as a family.”
Seeing a husband and wife leaving arm in arm when they would have initially been bent on separation helped her to realise that the family law was more about mediation than fighting tooth and nail using the law. “The law should be the final analysis, when you can’t get them to see eye to eye and to understand what is hurting… [the] other,” the judge said.
Justice Kertzious was among the first batch of trained mediators in 2003, and it was while volunteering as a mediator that she recognized there were things she took for granted in trying to make the law work. While she was volunteering, she also operated her private practice.
For someone from humble beginnings to achieve this milestone might seem like a ‘big thing,’ but for the new judge her appointment gives her a sense of achievement: “It is a dream come true, not really to become a judge as such, but to be sitting in a position where I can make the ultimate decision, some of the decisions that I couldn’t make sitting in the chair as an attorney at law,” she said.
She told the Sunday Stabroek in a recent interview that it does not mean that her colleagues before her time were not making some of the same decisions, but when one had specialized in a certain area of law – in her case, family law – one realized that many things were just “glossed over.”
“My hope now that I have been appointed a judge is that I can put [my experience] in some form where I can bring ultimate satisfaction to those who are seeking justice,” she said, adding that she knows there will be many times when not everyone will be pleased.
She said that in pronouncing on matters and performing one’s duty as a judge in arriving at a decision, one should strive to make an impact on the lives of the persons before one. “…Also in listening to how you arrive at your decision they should be able to recognize that there is more than winning or losing and that is the ultimate goal…the people as they walk out should be able to still have that respect for each other,” Justice Kertzious asserted.
She also sees her recent appointment as a demand for her to become more aware of the needs of citizens, the support of her colleagues and even the man on the street in addition to all her well-wishers who tell her that she has been given a duty to perform.
‘Joy of my life’
Born in Fort Nassau, Berbice River, Justice Kertzious, one of the three recently appointed judges, never forgets her roots and is proud to tell people that the home in which she spent some of her childhood years was situated just opposite Cuffy‘s headquarters during the uprising.
She described growing up in the Berbice River as the “joy of my life,” and would never exchange that part of her life for anything else. And her home was not only opposite the site of the Cuffy rising, but also the first Lutheran Church in Guyana.
“I grew up from a very humble beginning and like I said, I would never exchange [it] because it taught me to respect others and respect what you get; it taught me to sacrifice things and… look at the joys of what you sacrifice,” she said.
The seventh of 11 children, her parents were both famers, but now she is regarded as the “mother of the family”; she added with a smile it could be because of her “presumptiousness.”
Justice Kertzious said her joy was and still is to be around nature, and this had its genesis in where she was born and being exposed to running around the Berbice River and hearing the birds in the morning. She and her siblings all had pets which their mother ensured they fed before having their breakfast.
Her father, who was of Amerindian descent, taught them about the plants, fish and what to eat from the forest, which translated into her growing up with a wealth information, as opposed to acquiring everything from a book. Her father was “fanatical” about education, so he ensured they attended school, even though back then they could only receive a primary education in the Berbice River. During the holidays she and her siblings farmed.
She also learnt to cook at a very early age and she grew up in the Lutheran faith. “I learnt from my parents that there is no difference in race, colour or creed, and that again I would not exchange for the world, because that I think helps me even today in my position as a judge and a family lawyer…”
At age 12 her mother died from cancer and two years later she came to Georgetown to live with her maternal aunt – Loretta Lindie – and at that age she pledged to get an education not only fulfilling her own dream but also that of her father.
As she took her GEC and commercial classes, Justice Kertzious said she knew she wanted to work with people in some form, as she had “the fascination of trying to understand what goes through the mind of a human being,” but it was working in the chambers of Briton, Hamilton & Adams and with the now deceased Senior Counsel Peter Britton as her boss that it all fell into place.
“That is when I fell in love with the law,” she said, recalling that she was about sixteen years old then.
“The law was forced upon me because Mr Britton was a strict disciplinarian… there were certain rules of conduct you had to adhere to absolutely, and for me as a secretary I dare not send anyone to him who I had not interviewed, so that I did all the drafting of matters save and except for murder and rape…”
It was through this process she understood the law, and she also attended the court as a clerk and has the distinction of forming the first legal clerks association which was registered and looked out for the rights of legal clerks. Unfortunately it later fell by the wayside when she left the profession, while others migrated.
After attending the Critchlow Labour College she started working in the legal department of the Cooperative bank, and two years later she gained acceptance at the University of Guyana in the law faculty on the advice of the then Chancellor JOF Haynes, who headed the law faculty. Haynes died two months later and when she started law Britton was then heading the faculty.
‘Helped to mould’
And over the years through her academic pursuits and professional career Justice Kertzious has been involved in many organisations which “helped to mould me and exposed me to our people in Guyana and their needs.”
She is a member of the Lions Club of D’Urban Park Georgetown, and was its past president; she is the immediate past president of the Guyana Association of Women’s Lawyers; secretary to the Board of Directors of Marian Academy; a member of the Peace Corps; a member of the Board of Directors of Impretec; a member of Advocate Guyana, part of a Caribbean Christian group which as opposed to preaching, interacts with people treating them with love and kindness; Vice-President of the Evangelical Lutheran Church; and Chairperson of her home church, Redeemer Lutheran Church on Sheriff Street. She may have to give up some of these positions now that she is a judge.
Justice Kertzious is the mother of one son – Te’quain Vieira, who will be pursuing a career in the legal field – but she would be quick to tell you that she has fostered many children over the years. “I have a lot of foster children; I firmly believe that if we as parents can reach out to the youths you can give them some guidance, because with the different pressures out there some tend to go in ways that are not very satisfactory.”
She has a current foster son in the form of a nephew, and she said the classmates of both of her sons have gravitated to her home making it a “teenage place of relaxation.” As a result she is in the process of forming a Leo Club for the youths frequenting her home, as well as others she knows.
“To me life is an open book; my pet peeve is pretence, I do not believe in pretending to any human being about things that I like or don’t like and letting them be fooled… as human beings their purpose is better served if they know immediately what it is all about…”
This also plays a big part in her interactions with her clients and as a devout Christian she always allows God to play a part.
Justice Kertzious has never practised criminal law and while she admires her collogues who do, she said she has her own personal convictions about rape, murder and drug cases, even though she knows persons are innocent until proven guilty. She can counsel defendants in those cases and reach out to them, but she would not represent them in court.
As a judge she does not have a choice in what matters she hears, and she would only be pronouncing on the evidence that is presented before her.
