Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A trail­blaz­er, an el­e­gant well-spo­ken ju­rist, the epit­o­me of grace, charm and gen­eros­i­ty—with a ca­reer of pro­fes­sion­al ver­sa­til­i­ty.

This is how sev­er­al Sen­a­tors re­mem­bered the late re­tired Jus­tice Am­ri­ka Ti­wary-Red­dy, who died on April 6. Yes­ter­day in the Sen­ate, trib­ute was paid to the NAR Sen­a­tor (1989-1991) who al­so act­ed as at­tor­ney gen­er­al on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions. Sen­a­tors ob­served a minute’s si­lence on her pass­ing.

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal, said Ti­wary-Red­dy was a phe­nom­e­nal woman and trail­blaz­er whose jour­ney would leave an in­deli­ble mark on T&T’s le­gal and po­lit­i­cal land­scape.

Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said, “In our tra­di­tion and in re­li­gion, the sym­bol for pow­er and en­er­gy and strength is fe­male. In Hin­duism, we be­lieve that there is no Shi­va with­out Shak­ti. In oth­er words, the fem­i­nine as­pect of pow­er is need­ed for cre­ation and com­plete­ness ... Jus­tice Ti­wary-Red­dy is an epit­o­me of women em­pow­er­ment, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the era in which she ex­celled ... she cer­tain­ly pro­pelled women, East In­di­an women and more par­tic­u­lar­ly, Hin­du women.”

Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said she was al­so a de­vot­ed mem­ber of the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty, a found­ing mem­ber of the Hin­du Women’s Or­gan­i­sa­tion of T&T, and a beloved ra­dio talk show host.

“She bid farewell to this world, leav­ing be­hind a lega­cy of ex­cel­lence, com­pas­sion, and ser­vice.”

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al said Ti­wary-Red­dy was known as a very fair, mea­sured, el­e­gant well-spo­ken ju­rist, some­one who be­lieved in the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice.

“She fought for change, she didn’t be­lieve that judges shouldn’t be per­mit­ted to prac­tice when they demit­ted of­fice, she sought im­prove­ments to their terms and con­di­tions, al­ways be­ing a fierce ad­vo­cate for what was right and she be­lieved to be in the best in­ter­ests of the state’s in­sti­tu­tions.”

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Hazel Thomp­son-Ahye said she met Ti­wary-Red­dy soon af­ter she en­tered pri­vate prac­tice and was grate­ful to her. She al­so learned from her how to be kind to in­ex­pe­ri­enced coun­sel, “be­cause se­niors, es­pe­cial­ly to women, aren’t al­ways very kind ... I al­ways turned to her, if I had a ques­tion she was al­ways there and I al­ways thought of her as some­one with whom I had an affin­i­ty ... both of us had our navel string buried in San Juan.”

“She was the epit­o­me of grace, charm and gen­eros­i­ty. I loved her dear­ly, I nev­er told her but I did love her and ap­pre­ci­at­ed every­thing she did for me per­son­al­ly,” Thomp­son-Ahye added, lament­ing see­ing Ti­wary-Red­dy with a walk­ing stick last De­cem­ber.