At 11:30 am on Sat­ur­day, for­mer chief jus­tice Clin­ton Bernard, 90, took his last breath, af­ter ail­ing for some time.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, he com­plained to his wife, An­gela Bernard, of feel­ing un­well and ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing. He died a short while af­ter.

Bernard is the sec­ond for­mer chief jus­tice to pass away this month. On Oc­to­ber 8 Sat Shar­ma died at his Mar­aval home. He was 76.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with Bernard, she de­scribed her late hus­band as a per­son who lived for the law and said that was his pas­sion.

“He worked hard, con­tributed a lot and made a lot of im­prove­ments to the le­gal pro­fes­sions and the law—name­ly get­ting tax free salaries for judges,” Bernard says.

She al­so dis­tin­guished her hus­band as some­one who nev­er for­got his roots. “He was a pan en­thu­si­ast who loved Panora­ma. That was what he lived for in the Car­ni­val,” she says.

Above all, Bernard said, fam­i­ly meant every­thing to her hus­band and they were nev­er ne­glect­ed.

She boast­ed of their three ac­com­plished chil­dren, Garth, Les­ley and Gi­na. Garth, she said, was the last stu­dent to re­ceive the Jern­ing­ham Gold Medal in T&T, now called the Pres­i­dent's Medal. Les­ley is a foren­sic psy­chi­a­trist who lives in Gainesville, Flori­da, while Gi­na fol­lowed in the foot­steps of her fa­ther and is an at­tor­ney work­ing as a pub­lic de­fend­er in the courts of At­lanta.

Bernard held the most se­nior post in the Ju­di­cia­ry of this coun­try from 1985-1995.

Last year he launched the au­to­bi­og­ra­phy, Be­yond The Bridge: The Le­gal Jour­ney of Clin­ton An­ge­lo Bernard. It was pre­sent­ed to the pub­lic at an event held at Stollmey­er's Cas­tle, Mar­aval Road, Port-of-Spain.

At the event Bernard ex­pressed his dis­plea­sure over the State's fail­ure in 2014 to ap­prove mea­sures in­creas­ing the pen­sion of judges.

In 2002 Bernard was ap­point­ed to chair the Com­mis­sion of In­quiry in­to the con­struc­tion of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Al-Rawi pays trib­ute

In an im­me­di­ate re­ac­tion to Bernard's pass­ing, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi told Sun­day Guardian, “The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go mourns the pass­ing of yet an­oth­er icon in the ju­di­cial sys­tem of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

He de­scribed Bernard's tenure as “dif­fi­cult years but a time that saw sig­nif­i­cant re­form tak­ing place in the Ju­di­cia­ry.

“Bernard has had a very dis­tin­guished ca­reer and cer­tain­ly is a son of the soil that we are all very proud of.”

De­scrib­ing Bernard as “a light to our coun­try,” Al-Rawi said the coun­try now stood “a lit­tle bit dark­er with such a loss.”

He said the State stood ready to pro­vide sup­port to the fam­i­ly, which is cus­tom­ary in such in­stances.

The Ju­di­cia­ry mourns

"The Ju­di­cia­ry of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go mourns the pass­ing of Chief Jus­tice (Re­tired), Mr Jus­tice Clin­ton An­ge­lo Bernard, who died at home peace­ful­ly to­day, Oc­to­ber 26, 2019.

The late Jus­tice Clin­ton An­ge­lo Bernard served as Chief Jus­tice from 1985 to 1995 and left an in­deli­ble mark on the Ju­di­cia­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider lo­cal and re­gion­al le­gal en­vi­ron­ments. Af­ter study in the Unit­ed King­dom, where he was called to the Bar in 1960, he re­turned to Trinidad and To­ba­go in 1961. He joined the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s De­part­ment as a Le­gal cadet and that com­menced a long and dis­tin­guished ca­reer that saw ap­point­ments as Se­nior Coun­sel in 1966, Deputy So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al and act­ing ap­point­ments as So­lic­i­tor Gen­er­al and Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions. Ap­point­ed as Pui­sine Judge on No­vem­ber 1, 1977, he was el­e­vat­ed to the Court of ap­peal in 1982 and sworn in as Chief Jus­tice on De­cem­ber 23, 1985

Jus­tice Bernard re­ceived the Trin­i­ty Cross, the Coun­try’s high­est ho­n­our, in 1986.

A man of deep pas­sion for his fel­low man and the so­ci­ety that bred and formed him, this cher­ished and dis­tin­guished son, who hailed from “Be­hind the Bridge,” chaired and sat on many com­mit­tees across the span of civ­il so­ci­ety. He was made a life­time mem­ber of Pan Trin­ba­go, giv­en his love for the steel­pan and con­tri­bu­tion to the steel­band move­ment.

The Ju­di­cia­ry owes a debt of Grat­i­tude to Chief Jus­tice Bernard for his vi­sion and far-reach­ing judg­ments and re­forms dur­ing his tenure. Judges salaries and pen­sions were ad­just­ed and ben­e­fits were en­hanced.

The beau­ti­ful robes with their na­tion­al colours worn by Judges to­day had their de­sign gen­e­sis with him.

There was a slew of tech­ni­cal in­no­va­tion and phys­i­cal im­prove­ment which he put in place that paved the way for many of the changes that fol­lowed for the en­hanced de­liv­ery of jus­tice to the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

We say good­bye to an­oth­er le­gal gi­ant and of­fer our deep­est con­do­lences to his dear spouse Mrs An­gela Bernard, his three chil­dren, grand­chil­dren and great-grand­chil­dren and the rest of his fam­i­ly.

May he rest in eter­nal peace."