Akash Sama­roo

Two months af­ter the Re­pub­lic Day awards cer­e­mo­ny, Rus­sell Mar­tineau, SC, was of­fi­cial­ly be­stowed with the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ORTT) by the Head of State.

Mar­tineau was out of the coun­try dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny on Sep­tem­ber 24.

Mark E Lo­quan and Prof Patrick Ho­sein were the oth­er re­cip­i­ents of this pres­ti­gious award.

Yes­ter­day af­ter­noon at Pres­i­dent’s House, Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo pre­sent­ed medals to Mar­tineau and two oth­er na­tion­al awardees who were un­able to at­tend the Sep­tem­ber func­tion—busi­ness­man Nazir Khan who re­ceived the Cha­co­nia Sil­ver Medal and for­mer chief per­son­nel of­fi­cer Stephanie Lewis who was be­stowed the Hum­ming­bird Sil­ver.

Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie was in at­ten­dance to con­grat­u­late the awardees. Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley was not there.

An of­fi­cial from the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent told mem­bers of the me­dia the awardees did not want to be in­ter­viewed fol­low­ing the cer­e­mo­ny. When news broke of the award win­ners short­ly be­fore the cer­e­mo­ny in Sep­tem­ber, Mar­tineau had al­so de­clined to com­ment.

Fol­low­ing that an­nounce­ment, the head of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion (CBA) Is­rael Ra­jah-Khan en­dorsed Mar­tineau as a wor­thy re­cip­i­ent. He said Mar­tineau’s recog­ni­tion was “based on his mer­it, abil­i­ty and in­tegri­ty and his stel­lar con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of the law in Trinidad and To­ba­go. In­deed, he is a schol­ar and a gen­tle­man.”

He al­so called on Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to apol­o­gise to Mar­tineau for re­fer­ring to the SC as an “eat ah food, Cepep lawyer.” Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not re­lent, in­stead, she told Guardian Me­dia that her views have not changed.

Mar­tineau was ad­mit­ted to prac­tice law as a bar­ris­ter in T&T in 1972. In 1981, he was ap­point­ed sen­a­tor and at­tor­ney gen­er­al and held those po­si­tions un­til 1986. In 1993, he be­came se­nior coun­sel and served as pres­i­dent of LATT for four years.

Mar­tineau has served as di­rec­tor of many com­pa­nies, in­clud­ing BWIA, First Cit­i­zens, Re­pub­lic Bank and Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Lim­it­ed. He is a long-stand­ing di­rec­tor of the Pointe-a-Pierre Wild Fowl Trust and has been a mem­ber of the Queen’s Park Crick­et Club for many years.