Former speaker remembers ex-CJ Bernard

FORMER speaker Nizam Mohammed was among several attorneys who signed a condolence book in the lobby of the San Fernando High Court in memory of retired chief justice Clinton Bernard, 89.

Bernard died on Saturday. His funeral is carded for next week Wednesday. Bernard was Chief Justice from 1985-1995.

Magistrates and court marshals who worked in the judiciary during Bernard's tenure as a judge also signed and wrote words of comfort to his family.

Mohammed practised before Bernard both in the criminal and civil jurisdictions, when Bernard was a judge of the Appeal Court and as chief justice.

A written judgment by Bernard which reinforced the constitutional right of an accused person to legal representation, one attorney recalled yesterday, was that of the State versus Simon Habib. Habib pleaded guilty to murder before the late Justice Mustapha Ibrahim, who immediately passed the death sentence on him.

Bernard overruled Ibrahim's order on the ground that a person charged with a capital offence must be represented by attorney at his or her trial before a plea is taken.