Former CJ Bernard ‘hurt’ over lapsed judges’ pensions bill

FORMER Chief Justice Clinton Bernard has lived an extraordinary life. He was born in East Port of Spain in 1930, the second youngest of 12, “behind the bridge” that separates the poor neighbourhoods of the nation’s capital from the more affluent.

Understanding the importance of education, he worked hard to cross the bridge, becoming first a teacher, then eventually a lawyer. After graduating from law school in England and getting called to the bar in 1961, he never forgot his origins.

Though he had made it “beyond the bridge,” Bernard spent a three-decade long career punctuated by history, staunchly defending—and often interpreting—a fledgling nation’s untested Constitution.

His “pivotal” judgements on aspects of local jurisprudence still resonate in judgements today, retired Justice of Appeal Margot Warner said in her review of Bernard’s autobiography, Beyond the Bridge, launched yesterday at Stollmeyer’s Castle in Port of Spain.

“They were not for personal aggrandisement but to give hope to the hopeless and marginalised, that social conditions were not a barrier to success,” she said.

Bernard lived his life with passion, she said, and his book is not what lies behind or beyond the bridge, but rather, it is the bridge, showing what people from such communities, often looked-down upon, can become, Warner, who is also from East Port of Spain, said.

Despite all he has given to his country, though, Bernard is “hurt” by the way his country has treated him. That is because, according to him, he is the least-paid pensioned former Chief Justice in TT.

“This may not go down well, but I have to say it because it is something that has hurt me to the bone. I’ve lived with it for 24 to 25 years. But I’m mentioning it now so that you will appreciate how hurt I have been over this,” Bernard told his stunned-silent audience.

Bernard, now 88, looked frail, barely able to stand, and with a soft, reedy voice magnified only by a microphone. But his distress and disappointment were clear as he recalled a bill take to parliament in 2012 to reconsider the pensions of retired judges, after lobbying by people who had since then been moved by his plight. The bill was unanimously passed in the House of Representative, he said, but stalled in the Senate where it eventually lapsed.

“I have forgiven them. But I am hurt,” Bernard said, his voice catching in his throat.

Moving on from this distress, Bernard instead turned his attention to his wife, Angela, whom he thanked for staying with him through everything. The book, he said, again with emotion, was dedicated to her who, long before his appointment as Chief Justice, predicted the outcome – behind his first photo dressed in his lawyer’s robes in 1961, Angela had scribbled “Future Chief Justice.”