Margaret Price Findlay Appointed Chief Justice
Margaret Price Findlay has been formally appointed the 14th Chief Justice of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court after serving in an acting capacity since May 2025. The Trinidad and Tobago-born jurist is the first woman from her country and only the second woman overall to lead the regional court, a development welcomed by the British Virgin Islands legal community where she spent much of her career.
Margaret Price Findlay has been officially appointed the 14th Chief Justice of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC), following an acting tenure that began in May 2025. The confirmation took place at a ceremony at the court’s headquarters in Castries, Saint Lucia, and marks a historic milestone for the region’s judiciary.
Born in Diego Martin, Trinidad, Justice Price Findlay attended Holy Name Convent and later earned her law degree from the University of the West Indies. She practised law in Trinidad and Tobago from 1987 until relocating to the Virgin Islands in January 1991, where she established the firm Price Findlay & Co and served as a magistrate in the territory’s courts.
Her ties to the British Virgin Islands are deep: she built much of her private practice there and was a familiar figure in the local legal fraternity long before joining the ECSC bench. In 2009 the Judicial and Legal Services Commission appointed her a High Court Judge of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court and assigned her to Grenada.
She subsequently rose to the Court of Appeal and was selected to act as Chief Justice in 2025 prior to her formal confirmation. During the official appointment ceremony Justice Price Findlay delivered an emotional address reflecting on her decades-long legal journey and the support of family, colleagues and mentors. "If anyone had told me when I arrived in the BVI in January 1991 that I would stand before you as Chief Justice of this venerable institution and only the second woman to hold this office, I would have certainly not believed you," she said.
She also acknowledged the responsibilities of leading one of the Caribbean’s most respected judicial bodies and paid tribute to predecessors she described as "some of the finest legal minds that have graced this institution." The ECSC serves six independent Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States members—Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines—alongside the British Overseas Territories of Anguilla, the Virgin Islands and Montserrat.
Legal observers across the region have hailed the appointment as significant for Caribbean jurisprudence and for women in leadership within the justice system. For residents of the British Virgin Islands, Justice Price Findlay’s elevation brings a familiar figure to the helm of the regional court.
Her longstanding experience in the territory and on the ECSC bench is expected to provide continuity in judicial administration and a strong voice for issues affecting the BVI within the broader Eastern Caribbean legal framework. The local legal community has widely welcomed her appointment as both a professional achievement and a symbolic step forward for representation in the judiciary.
Primary source: Guavaberry