About the FSC Appeal Tribunal

The Honourable Justice Lloyd Hibbert was born in Kingston on December 12, 1946. He attended Wolmer’s Boys School and thereafter joined the staff of the Resident’s Magistrate’s Court as an Assistant Clerk of Court.

Justice Hibbert, after acting as a Clerk of the Court, in 1973, enrolled in the Faculty of Law of the University of the West Indies. In 1976 he graduated with a Bachelor of Law (LLB) degree and thereafter was enrolled at the Norman Manley Law School from which he obtained the Certificate of Legal Education in 1978.

Later that year he joined the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) as an Assistant Crown Counsel and grew through the ranks to the position of Senior Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions and remained in that post until December 2000. During this period, in 1985, he acted as a Judge of the Family Court for the Parishes of St. James and Hanover and in 1995 he was appointed to the Inner Bar as one of Her Majesty’s Queen Counsel (QC).

In January 2001, Justice Hibbert was appointed a Judge of the Supreme Court after acting in that post since January 2000 and remained there until his retirement in July 2017. During his tenure as Judge of the Supreme Court, he also acted as Judge of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands and as a Judge of the Court of Appeal in Jamaica.

In 2014 the National Honour of Order of Distinction, Commander Class (CD) was conferred on Justice Hibbert. Justice Lloyd Hibbert is married to Carol and is a Roman Catholic.

The Honourable Justice Seymour Panton, was born in Blenheim, Hanover, Jamaica, on January 3, 1946.

He was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, London on November 26, 1968. During the period 1969 to 1971 he served as Clerk of the Courts and from 1971 to 1973 acted as Crown Counsel in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Justice Panton worked as a Legal Assistant to the Attorney General in the Cayman Islands from 1973 to 1977 and as Senior Crown Counsel from 1977 to 1978. He returned to Jamaica and in 1978 became a Resident Magistrate until 1986 when he was appointed Puisne Judge. From 1999 to 2007 he was a Judge of Appeal and in 2007 became the President of the Court of Appeal from which he retired in 2016.

Since May 2016 Justice Panton has been a Judge of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals and was a member of the Commonwealth Secretariat Arbitral Tribunal between 2008 and 2017.

He has acted as a Judge of the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands on several occasions between 2001 and 2016.

He was the recipient of a Fulbright grant to observe the operations of the American Judicial and Legislative Systems in 1990. He is a trained Legislative Draftsman.

He was honoured twice by the Cornwall Bar Association for “outstanding service to the legal profession”, by the Jamaican Bar Association for “outstanding service to the Judiciary” as well as by the Hanover Homecoming Foundation for leadership.

Justice Panton received the Order of Distinction, in the rank of Commander (CD) for “outstanding service to the Judiciary” in 2006 and was appointed a member of the Order of Jamaica (O.J.) in 2007.

He has been a Lay Preacher in the Methodist Church since 1981 and a Justice of the Peace for the Parish of Kingston since 2008. He is married to Carla Maxine Panton and is the father of two Children – Dr. Suzette-Ann Panton and Sandor Ramon Panton (Internet Marketer).

Mrs. Velmore Lawrence, was born in St. Ann on February 13, 1955. She had her early education at Holmwood Technical High School, where she was the Head Girl in 1978.

She is a Retired Career Banker, spanning 42 years, over which time she held many and varied managerial positions in Retail as well as Corporate Banking. She retired in June 2014, having served lastly as the General Manager of CIBC FirstCaribbean International Building Society and a Director of the Bank’s Board, then Head of the CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank’s Mortgage Sales and Support Unit.

Mrs. Lawrence was commissioned as a Justice of the Peace for the Parish of St. Andrew in 2012. She is a Board Member of the Kiwanis Foundation of Jamaica, The Kiwanis Club of Eastern St. Andrew, and Solvent Financial Services Ltd. She also held a seat on the Board of Jamaica Junior Achievement, a Non- Government Organization and a Corporate Representative on the Board of The Governor General’s Achievements Awards. She was a Volunteer Teacher at the St. Francis Primary School and a Mentor for the Y.U.T.E. programme. She is an Adjunct Lecturer at the Jamaica Theological Seminary and a Self Employed Management Consultant specializing in Strategic Management, Organizational Behaviour and Organizational Culture.

Mrs. Lawrence is an Associate of the Canadian Institute of Bankers (AICB), holds a Bachelor’s degree (Honors) in Finance; and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree majoring in Finance, from the University of Manchester, England.

She is passionate about the development of young children, hence most of her 25 years in Kiwanis Service has been spent in Administering that organization’s Service Leadership Programmes in schools.

Divorced, a mother of four children, and a grandmother, Mrs. Lawrence enjoys the visual and performing arts, collects Jamaican Memorabilia and is an avid reader.