Prominent Jamaican attorney B. St. Michael Hylton O.J., KC, has been appointed to the Turks and Caicos Islands Court Appeal.
Mr. Justice Hylton, an attorney-at-law with a distinguished career in both the private and public sectors,was in 2022 appointed an acting judge of the Supreme Court of the Turks and Caicos Islands. During that year he also served as a member of the Committee appointed by the Chief Justice to draft new civil procedure rules for this jurisdiction.
A graduate of the University of the West Indies and the Norman Manley Law School, Mr. Hylton spent the first 24 years of his professional life at one of Jamaica’s leading law firms.
In 2001 he resigned from the firm to accept appointment as Solicitor General of Jamaica, a position he held until he retired in 2007 to start his own firm.
His Lordship was Chairman of the General Legal Council (the statutory body that regulates the legal profession in Jamaica) between 2010 and 2016. He has also chaired other regulatory bodies including the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force, the Financial Services Commission of Jamaica and the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority.
In 2016 he was appointed as a Commissioner of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission and served as its deputy Chairman between 2021 and his mandatory retirement in 2022 at the expiry of his second term as a Commissioner.
His Lordship has written and published numerous legal articles and has made many presentations at conferences throughout the region and elsewhere including at the Commonwealth Law Conferences in Melbourne (2003), Livingstone (2019) and Goa (2023), and at the OECD/IDB Forum in Rio de Janeiro (2004), the 24th Cambridge Symposium on Organized Crime, Cambridge (2006), the CALCA/GLC 4th Biennial Conference in Sint Maarten (2016) and the OECS Regional Law Conference in Roseau (2017).
In addition to Jamaica, His Lordship has been admitted to the bars of Trinidad and Tobago, St Kitts & Nevis, Grenada, the British Virgin Islands and Belize. He has specialized in commercial and constitutional cases, and has successfully argued more than 35 appeals before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
His Lordship has also contributed to Caribbean jurisprudence and the legal profession in various other capacities, including as atutor at the Norman Manley Law School for more than 30 years;member of the Rules Committee of the Jamaican Supreme Court;consultant to the drafting committee, Caribbean Court of Justice Appellate Jurisdiction Rules; member and coordinator, Commission of Experts drafting Guidelines/ Minimum Standards for the Commonwealth on Freedom of Expression, Assembly & Association (2002);chairman of an international panel on the Role of International Conventions and Other Multilateral Initiatives in the Fight Against Crime (Oxford, England, August 2002);Chairman, Private Sector Organization committee on the reform of insolvency legislation (2011 – 2015); andAssistant Editor, West Indian Law Journal 2007-2014.
In 1995 the Honourable Mr. Justice Hylton was appointed Queens Counsel, and in 2006 he was awarded the Order of Jamaica in recognition of his contribution to Law and the Public Service.
