AKASH SAMA­ROO

Se­nior Re­porter

Ro­man Catholic Arch­bish­op Rev­erend Charles Ja­son Gor­don re­vealed that for­mer Chief Jus­tice Michael de la Bastide sought mer­cy in his fi­nal days.

As the of­fi­ci­at­ing Rev­erend for to­day's of­fi­cial fu­ner­al mass at The Church of the As­sump­tion, Mar­aval, the Arch­bish­op said that he was de la Bastide's per­son­al priest and was with him in his fi­nal days.

He said the for­mer judge knew that his judge­ment day was com­ing.

"At the end of his life, what Michael want­ed the most was mer­cy. For a man that has pur­sued jus­tice so re­lent­less­ly at every lev­el pos­si­ble, [he] un­der­stood that at the end of his life if jus­tice was met­ed out to him, he was in deep trou­ble and on­ly mer­cy would take him from he was to where his heart want­ed to be," the Arch­bish­op told the con­gre­ga­tion, which in­clud­ed the Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, as well as act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert.

Arch­bish­op Gor­don added: "The peace that is most dear to him was hav­ing his fam­i­ly join­ing to­geth­er and able to ex­pe­ri­ence him in that mo­ment of mer­cy where he want­ed each one to know that he need­ed you more than any­one else."

The Arch­bish­op urged those in at­ten­dance to seek mer­cy with the same vigour as they do with jus­tice.

Mean­while of­fer­ing brief re­marks, Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie de­scribed de la Bastide as a vi­sion­ary leader, a bril­liant ju­rist and a man who loved life, a good joke, his coun­try—and most im­por­tant­ly, his fam­i­ly.

The Pres­i­dent of the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice al­so brought con­do­lences on be­half of the in­sti­tu­tion, which de la Bastide once led.

Jus­tice Adri­an Saun­ders cred­it­ed de la Bastide for his work in lay­ing a sol­id foun­da­tion for the CCJ as its first Pres­i­dent.

The for­mer Chief Jus­tice died on March 30 at the age of 86 years.

An of­fi­cial fu­ner­al was grant­ed by the State. As such the na­tion­al flag will be flown at half-mast to­day.