Born in Blenheim, Hanover, Seymour Panton was educated at Green Island Elementary School and thereafter, the Rusea’s High School. During his years at the Rusea’s High School, he assumed the leadership roles of Head Boy and Captain of the Headley Cup Cricket in 1964.
Called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, London, England on 26 November 1968, he was subsequently trained as a Legislative Draftsman. He has held various positions in the legal and judicial system here in Jamaica – noteworthy mentions being Assistant Clerk, Deputy Clerk, Clerk of Courts, Acting Crown Counsel; Resident Magistrate from 1978 to 1986; Puisne Judge from 1986 to 1999; Judge of Appeal from 1999 to 2007; President of the Court of Appeal from 2007 to 2016. In the Cayman Islands he held positions as – Legal Assistant to the Attorney-General from 1973 to 1977; Senior Crown Counsel from 1977 to 1978; Acting Magistrate in 1989 and Acting Grand Court Judge from 2001 to 2016.
In 2016, Panton retired in as President of the Court of Appeal.
Presently, he serves as a Judge of the International Residual Mechanism for the Criminal Tribunals, a role he proudly assumed since 2016. He, during the period 1982 to 1988 was the Caribbean Representative on the Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges Association; and from 2008 to 2017 was a member of the Commonwealth Secretariat Arbitral Tribunal.
Seymour Panton has been a Lay Preacher in the Methodist Church since 1981.
In his decorated years of service to the Jamaican people and the wider Caribbean, Panton earned and received the national honours of Commander of the Order of Distinction (CD) and Order of Jamaica (OJ). His service earned him to be honoured by the Cornwall Bar Association (twice), and the Jamaican Bar Association. He, in 2004 received The Hanover Homecoming “Bird of Paradise Award” for Leadership and was inducted into the Martin Rusea Hall of Fame in 2007.
Panton, continuing his leadership and passion for justice has been a Justice of the Peace for Kingston, since 2007 and currently holds the distinguished post of Chairman of the Integrity Commission of the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI), a post he’s assumed since December 2018. He was named a Commissioner for the Integrity Commission in Jamaica in 2018 after the establishment of the Integrity Commission Act, and was later appointed as Chairman in September 2019, to lead the charge against corruption.
