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The Right Honourable Patricia Scotland KC
Commonwealth Secretary-GeneralThe Right Honourable Patricia Scotland KC is the 6th Commonwealth Secretary-General. Born in Dominica, she moved to the United Kingdom with her family and grew up in East London. In 1991, she was the first black woman in history and the youngest woman ever to be appointed a Queen’s Counsel. The first black woman to be appointed a Deputy High Court Judge, Recorder and Master of Middle Temple, she then joined the House of Lords in 1997 as Baroness Scotland of Asthal. Following a ministerial career in the Foreign Office, Home Office and Lord Chancellor’s Department, she was appointed Attorney General for England and Wales in 2007 – the first woman to hold the post since it was created in 1315.
Following her ministerial career, she was appointed a Prime Ministerial Trade Envoy to South Africa in 2012, and elected as the Alderman of Bishopsgate in the City of London in 2014. She was Dominica’s candidate for Secretary-General at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Malta in 2015, and was re-elected at CHOGM in Rwanda in 2022. She is the second Secretary-General from the Caribbean and the first woman to hold the post.