Sen­a­tors should pay fit­ting trib­ute to late Pres­i­dent Sir El­lis Clarke by adopt­ing the deco­rum and cour­tesy which were the hall­marks of Clarke's pub­lic and pri­vate life. Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith made that com­ment yes­ter­day as mem­bers of the Up­per House paid trib­ute to Clarke who died re­cent­ly.

Sen­a­tors ob­served a minute's si­lence to mark Clarke's pass­ing. Hamel-Smith said Clarke's dig­ni­ty, deco­rum and cour­tesy stood out in his life­time.

He said Clarke might have urged sen­a­tors to be sim­i­lar ex­em­plars and set the tone for the rest of so­ci­ety since so­ci­ety mir­rors its lead­ers. Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Sen­ate leader Sub­has Pan­day said Clarke put a lot of thought in­to draft­ing T&T's Con­sti­tu­tion which prop­er­ly de­fined the role of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and en­sured the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers be­tween the ex­ec­u­tive and ju­di­cia­ry. Pan­day said the lat­ter sit­u­a­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly, en­sured the ex­ec­u­tive would not be a "run­away horse."

Pan­day not­ed that Clarke was nev­er giv­en the ho­n­our of be­ing se­nior coun­sel and hav­ing "silk."

He said this brought out great hu­mil­i­ty in Clarke who nev­er flaunt­ed his au­thor­i­ty. PNM Sen­ate leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, who laud­ed Clarke as a true pa­tri­ot, said his lega­cy will con­tin­ue to shape and guide T&T's des­tiny. In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Bashar­rat Ali not­ed var­i­ous trib­utes paid to Clarke. He said the pro­posed UWI di­vi­sion in Clarke's name was the most fit­ting memo­r­i­al to him. (GA)