Macaulay
MARGARETTE MAY Macaulay is as precocious now as the day at age three when she announced to her mother that she wanted to become a lawyer. Then, her parents were resigned. Margarette talked so much that the her destiny seemed to be determined for the Bar.
Sent to Catholic schools in Sierra Leone, where she was born, and then in England, her ardour for legal matters was never dampened. If anything, her desire for advocacy increased in direct proportion to the passage of the years.
The law, for her, is about advocacy. Indeed, as it appears, she has redefined the term, as she spends more time lobbying for the rights of women and of the child, than working on her private career.
At St. Joseph's Convent in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and then at Our Lady's Convent in London, England, she did not hesitate to express her opinions and at the last she became debating captain.
Margarette May read law at Holborn College, University of London and became a member at Gray's Inn in 1963. She married Berthan Macaulay one year after she graduated in February 1967.
Focused on returning to Sierra Leone, in 1966 she pursued the Diploma in Comparative African Law at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
"I went into a profession where I could talk, and yet help people," she says. It was well that she could, because the male dominated field, as it was in the '60s and early '70s, was not above trying to put her in her 'womanly place'.
"When I started my degree in law in 1963, you had to strive to be taken seriously and even literally fight off romantic approaches all the time from both students and members of faculty," she says.
She lived for a short time in Sierra Leone, where her husband was Attorney General. She later worked with him after he resigned and return to private practice. However, with coups from 1967 onward and the establishment of one-party government, they relocated to Jamaica in 1974 where she attended the Norman Manley Law School at the University of the West Indies and obtained the qualifying certificate from the Council of Legal Education. Margarette walked away with the award for the most outstanding Jamaican student in 1976.
Still, when she commenced private practice (shared with her husband) the judges would insist on addressing her by her social name Mrs. Berthan Macaulay, "as if I were not an individual in my own right".
Those who did not know better were soon disabused.
Her passion for advocacy, ability to articulate and skills in research and questioning ensured this.
From her days in England, a great tenacity was required for every success. "My first case on the day of my enrollment was a murder case where there was a confession," she recalls. "I remember that I was assigned as junior counsel to my husband the responsibility to adduce evidence from the main witness on the voir dire to show that the confession was involuntary. It was a very good start." She has done further arguments in this arena.
Later that year, she had her first appearance as her husband's junior in the Privy Council in London and argued the second argument for the side. They succeeded.
In yet another case, she successfully defended a mother charged for manslaughter of her baby. Here her objective was to get the case dismissed at the preliminary enquiry. She remembers, "All my colleagues who had heard of the matter said I would not succeed and that the matter would be committed to trial. I thought that there was not enough evidence but everyone else thought otherwise. I worked very hard and I cross-examined the witnesses and the doctor in detail and I succeeded. There was no prima facie case to go to trial. I felt great."
It was not always emotionally rewarding. In her first murder case in which the accused was convicted she said, "I felt absolutely physically sick for days and days. I did not want to do another one." She recovered after a while, and after her husband advised her that hers was a very normal reaction.
But, murder cases were always exciting in the preparatory stage. "The responsibility is so great. You are appearing for someone who could lose his life. I never could eat for days. Lunchtime was spent reading up. It was draining, physically and emotionally and taxed you mentally. And yet, there was the excitement.
"I love to address the juries. Appeals are also exciting where there are interesting legal points. You lose sleep in preparing for the matter...it takes over your life. You think about the matter whatever you are doing."
Related to her love of the field is a desire to write about it. She says, "There is one thing I would like to do if I could find the time and had the money to take off some time from my practice and advocacy for rights. I would like to write books. I would really love to do that. I would write books with legal and human rights themes ."
As yet, there is little time for such a pursuit.
The major change in her career in the last two decades has been her increased focus on advocacy and balancing this with the practice of law.
Margarette May Macauley wears a multiplicity of titles and does all the work that they demand. She is a member of the Eastern Caribbean and Gambian Bars and has appeared in cases in those furisjictions. She is a member and secretary of the St. Richard's Primary School Board; chairperson of the Caribbean Association for Feminine Research and Action (CAFA) which covers the four language areas of the region. The secretariat for this is based in Trinidad. She was just elected chairman of the Jamaica Coalition on the Rights of the Child. She is also chairperson of the Family Law Committee of the Jamaica Bar Association and a member of the Law Reform Committee, the Publications Committee, as well as the Human Rights and Constitutional Committee.
Macaulay is additionally a member of the Disciplinary Committee of the General Legal Council. She is also a member of the Coalition for an Internation-al Criminal Court, for which the secretariat is based in New York. Also based in this American capital is the Women's Caucus for Gender Justice of which she is a member. She has represented Jamaica and her women's rights organizations at various international and United Nations conferences and has presented various papers in some of these fora on women's rights. She is a trained Supreme Court mediator.
"Women's rights and children are my passion. The agenda for Jamaica involves lobbying for amendments to the legislation, observing the passage of legislation, public education about existing laws, and drumming up support for advocacy to change laws and the enactment of necessary social rights legislation."
When the Domestic Violence Act was going through Parliament, Margaret May Macaulay was the then chairperson of the legal committee of AWOJA and attended Parliament with recommendations, some of which were accepted as necessary. That for her, counts as a success, though the government decided to pass the Act and deal with most of the recommendations later. They are being dealt with now.
"With the Family Property 'Rights of Spouses' Bill, we caused the chairman of the Joint Select Committee to say that the Bill would be looked at again. We have not heard from them yet. I think we are making some inroads," says Macaulay.
The results may not seem spectacular, but the lawyer says, "For me, to feel that my life is worthwhile, I have to engage in these things. I have to feel that I am trying to change things for the better. Even if only one person is helped to understand her rights, so that she can better protect herself in the future, it is worth the sacrifice, I think."
- Avia Ustanny
