Honouring Dr Fenton Ramsahoye

Indian Arrival 2004 will be celebrated by the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha of Trinidad and Tobago with the expected populist pomp and ceremony that has become associated with the SDMS observance of this holiday. In 2004 the SDMS will be making a departure from its normal observance of Indian Arrival Day celebrations. The SDMS will be paying public tribute to Dr Fenton Ramsahoye in all of its Indian Arrival Day celebrations. This marks the first time in the SDMS celebration of Indian Arrival Day that a person has been singled out for public tribute. The Barbados based, Guyana-born and Trinidad attorney also signals the SDMS concept that the Indian has a Caribbean identity that has long been ignored by others who have staked a chauvinist claim on what is a Caribbean identity.

Dr Ramsahoye represents that the law can be without prejudice if prosecuted to its logical impartial end. This was the case when Dr Ramsahoye aided by Anand Ramlogan advocated on behalf of the SDMS against the State with regard to the awarding of a radio license. Dr Ramsahoye advocating the SDMS position secured a favorable judgment on Thursday 5th February, 2004 when High Court Justice Carlton Best delivered what has to be considered a landmark judgment in Trinidad and Tobago and indeed the Caribbean. In his judgment Justice Best clearly stated, “In the opinion of this Court, this inaction on the part of the Cabinet constitutes a constructive refusal of the licenses and is a prima facie case of unequal treatment… The lack of staff and inefficiency in the Public Service; change of venue, political directorate and policy, in the view of this court, should not be allowed to stand as justification for the differential treatment meted out to the Applicants herein.”

Dr Ramsahoye was born at Grove, East Bank, Demerara, Guyana on 20th May, 1929. He completed primary school on the West Coast of Demerara and then attended secondary school in Georgetown. He joined the civil service as a clerk in the Treasury in 1946 and served until 1956 when he left to join the Honorable Society of Lincoln’s Inn. He passed the Bar Examination in 1952 and was called to the Bar in 1953. He returned to Guyana in 1953 but returned to England in 1957 to pursue a doctorate. In 1959 Ramsahoye was awarded a PhD degree by the University of London and was elected to the Legislative Assembly for the Peoples Progressive Party of Guyana in 1961. Dr Ramsahoye from 1961 to 1964 served as the Attorney General of Guyana. Dr Ramsahoye was the first Indian Attorney General in the Western Hemisphere and served in the first Indian based government in the Western Hemisphere.

The US/CIA supported coup that resulted in the overthrow of the PPP government saw Dr Ramsahoye removed from government. He however was a Member of Parliament from 1961 to 1973. In 1972 Dr Ramsahoye was appointed Deputy Director of Legal Education and his first assignment was to establish the Hugh Wooding Law School at St Augustine, Trinidad that will serve to take the first LLB graduates from the Faculty of Law in Barbados in September 1973. Since 1975 Dr Ramsahoye has had an unbroken practice at the Bar of the Privy Council and in the West Indian territories. He practiced in the Eastern Caribbean, British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Over the past ten years Dr Ramsahoye has been actively involved with important cases concerned with the human rights of the West Indies peoples, the rights of union workers, and the rights of both employers and employees in commerce, trade and industry as well as the rights of workers in the public service and in statutory corporations. His most important cases have been reported in law reports published in England and in the West Indies law reports. Dr Ramsahoye’s work in constitutional and administrative law has helped to define the freedom of the West Indian peoples in relation to liberty, freedom of expression, rights over property and rights of equality before the law and the protection of the law.

Dr Ramsahoye has ensured that his legacy will continue as he has influenced many attorneys across the Caribbean. Most notably Dr Ramsahoye has influenced significantly, some would dare say, adopted as a prot?g? Civil Rights attorney Anand Ramlogan. In the past Dr Ramsahoye also played an important role in the life of Human Rights lawyer Ramesh Lawerence Maharaj. As part of the SDMS Indian Arrival Day celebration the SDMS will be hosting a dinner in honour of Dr Fenton Ramsahoye on Friday 28th May at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. The President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, The Attorney General of Guyana, The Attorney General of Antigua and Barbuda, and many distinguished nationals of Trinidad and Tobago will be in attendance. On Indian Arrival Day Dr Ramsahoye will be the guest of honor at the Sims’s major function in Debe, Trinidad.