Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A larg­er-than-life son of the soil, a no­ble gen­tle­man, a li­on of the le­gal field—and a true ex­am­ple of pa­tri­o­tism.

Those were among trib­utes paid by sen­a­tors yes­ter­day to for­mer Chief Jus­tice Michael de la Bastide, who died on March 30. Sen­a­tors ob­served a minute’s si­lence on his pass­ing dur­ing the sit­ting. De la Bastide had served as an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor in the first Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment be­tween 1976 to 1981.

“There again (in the Sen­ate) he was bal­anced, mea­sured, well-spo­ken, well re­searched, re­spect­ed and re­spect­ful … and he sought to rep­re­sent the pub­lic in­ter­est in every de­bate that he joined,” said Gov­ern­ment Sen­ate leader Dr Amery Browne in his trib­ute.

Browne said de la Bastide was one of the most out­stand­ing ju­rists in T&T’s his­to­ry and was a larg­er-than-life son of the soil.

De­tail­ing his his­to­ry from a child who lost his fa­ther at age nine to his bril­liant per­for­mance at schools, uni­ver­si­ty, law school and oth­er ar­eas, Browne added, “His aca­d­e­m­ic and all-round foun­da­tion led him to a dis­tin­guished and ab­solute­ly out­stand­ing ca­reer in the le­gal pro­fes­sion ... his lega­cy con­tin­ues to live on in the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice’s hal­lowed halls, and across many oth­er in­sti­tu­tions that he graced with his dis­tin­guished pres­ence.”

De­tail­ing de la Bastide’s en­gage­ment with or­gan­i­sa­tions, Browne added, “In the words of his dear wife Si­mone, he al­ways found ways to pay it for­ward, qui­et­ly and con­sis­tent­ly. She de­scribes him as a for­mi­da­ble, con­fi­dent man, who firm­ly be­lieved in God.

“In his last days, Michael lost his vi­sion, but with a deep sense of faith, love and sup­port, he con­tin­ued to nav­i­gate through life. His old­est, dear­est friend Boyd Reid used to vis­it and pa­tient­ly read var­i­ous books for him, four days per week, four books at a time. Sad­ly, Boyd passed away one week be­fore Michael did.”

Browne added, “The body of work pro­ceed­ing from his as­tute mind and his flow­ing pen, much like his in­domitable spir­it which re­turns to its Mak­er, must cer­tain­ly live on thanks to his in­deli­ble con­tri­bu­tions to so­ci­ety.”

Op­po­si­tion Sen­ate leader Wade Mark de­scribed de la Bastide as a no­ble gen­tle­man, schol­ar, ju­rist ex­tra­or­di­naire and a for­mer chief jus­tice “who graced this au­gust House in his wis­dom as a Sen­a­tor”.

De­tail­ing de la Bastide’s dis­tin­guished ca­reer, Mark added, “In­deed, T&T has lost a no­ble gen­tle­man of its soil whose wis­dom has con­tributed im­mense­ly to na­tion-build­ing in T&T.”

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira, who said de la Bastide was the rea­son he de­cid­ed to pur­sue law, said he was, “one of the finest minds T&T has ever pro­duced”.

“Michael worked tire­less­ly for the de­vel­op­ment of ju­di­cial ed­u­ca­tion, ju­di­cial in­de­pen­dence, and ju­rispru­dence in T&T. He was a force of na­ture, tru­ly a li­on at the bar. To­day, that mighty roar has fall­en silent, but the mem­o­ry of it will res­onate for years to come.

“Though bril­liant, he was nev­er vain or boast­ful ... sig­nif­i­cant­ly, he wasn’t one-di­men­sion­al. The ‘Bull’ had many in­ter­ests, in­clud­ing a pas­sion for bridge and a love for sport, par­tic­u­lar­ly field hock­ey and ten­nis. He en­joyed a good fete and play­ing mas; in­deed, tales about his joie de vivre at Car­ni­val time were leg­endary.

“He had the amaz­ing ca­pac­i­ty to both work and play hard. Michael de la Bastide rep­re­sents the best of what T&T can of­fer. We should be proud of him, cel­e­brate him, and ho­n­our his lega­cy.”

re­frained from giv­ing voice to the mi­nor­i­ty per­spec­tive... he al­ways cham­pi­oned press­ing is­sues of the day whether or not they were pop­u­lar ones.”