PRBar forms Judiciary Committee
PRBar forms Judiciary Committee
The Puerto Rican Bar Association of Florida, Inc., has created a Judiciary Committee to evaluate judicial candidates running in elections throughout the state for fitness for office, as it pertains to the bar and the Puerto Rican community at large.
The secondary purpose of the committee will be to monitor actions by sitting judges as they relate to the interests of the bar.
“The impartiality and quality of the bench in Florida, both at the state and federal level, are of paramount importance to the PRBAR,” said PRBAR of Florida President Anthony Suarez. “This committee is tasked with the inquiry as to those fundamental qualities.”
According to the Pew Research Institute’s Hispanic Center, 18 percent of the 4.9 million Hispanics of Puerto Rican descent in the continental U.S. live in Florida. Therefore, Suarez said, the PRBAR of Florida “must continue its efforts to improve the legal system, as it exists in our state and must continue to empower a community of nearly 900,000 Puerto Ricans who call Florida their home.”
The committee will be operating statewide and will consist of the PRBAR president, a chair to be appointed by the sitting president, and subcommittees in each district of the state, consisting of three members in good standing and including one nonlawyer member. Suarez has already appointed Yesenia Collazo to chair the panel.
Any judicial candidates seeking endorsement from the PRBAR of Florida should contact Collazo at The Collazo Law Firm, P.A., 10200 N.W. 25th Street, Suite 201, Miami 33172, telephone 305-477-6401, or [email protected].
