Post by Djedi Maaur on Feb 16, 2008 10:39:03 GMT -5
Sobion’s roots in black power
BY ANDRE BAGOO Saturday, February 16 2008
IT WAS Keith Sobion’s early experience of the upheaval of the 1970s and the Black Power Movement that helped forge his lifelong interest in politics, Deputy Speaker of the House of Repre-sentatives Pennelope Beckles said yesterday.
Beckles joined parliamentarians in their tribute to Sobion, a former Attorney General, whose legacy they said included shaping Caribbean jurisprudence.
MPs honoured Sobion, who died on Thursday in Jamaica, by observing a moment’s silence at 1.43 pm.
“Although Mr Keith Stanford Sobion became an attorney-at-law, his interest in politics began in his early years as a student of St Mary’s College and his experience of the social upheaval of the 1970s and the Black Power Movement,” Beckles told the chamber in a short address.
Beckles was at one stage a student of Sobion, in the same class with Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the Siparia MP, when both attended the Hugh Wooding Law School.
The Deputy Speaker pointed out that Sobion would later go on to call for the establishment of the family court during his tenure as AG between 1991 and 1995 and that he was the first West Indian trained lawyer to head the Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica.
Sobion was also at one stage nominated to be House Speaker on April 6, 2002.
Persad-Bissessar said Sobion’s legacy will live on through the countless students who were, at one stage or the other, taught by him.
“It is his students who will shape the jurisprudence of the region and by extension the individual and collect societies of the region,” she said.
“As a former lecturer...he contributed to molding legal minds of the region,” she said, “it is there I think that his legacy will live on, in his students who have now become lawyers, some have become judges some of whom are legislators.”
She invited Beckles to reminisce over their time at law school together in a class taught by Sobion. She called him an “outstanding teacher” and said he showed tremendous “class” when in 1995, he literally handed over his seat as AG to her.
“We will miss him in more ways than one. He was a colleague in the law, he was a colleague in the politics but above all Mr Sobion was a friend,” she said.
Leader of Government Business Colm Imbert said Sobion served “with distinction” in the PNM government, and Stanford Callender, the Tobago West MP, praised Sobion’s career.
The House also paid tribute to former PNM minister Dr Wilbert Winchester, who passed away last Friday. In paying tribute, Chandresh Sharma, the Fyzabad MP, implored all parliamentarians to develop “a brothership of love”.
“What we need to do is make sure we care for each other,” he said as the House remembered the deceased men.
BY ANDRE BAGOO Saturday, February 16 2008
IT WAS Keith Sobion’s early experience of the upheaval of the 1970s and the Black Power Movement that helped forge his lifelong interest in politics, Deputy Speaker of the House of Repre-sentatives Pennelope Beckles said yesterday.
Beckles joined parliamentarians in their tribute to Sobion, a former Attorney General, whose legacy they said included shaping Caribbean jurisprudence.
MPs honoured Sobion, who died on Thursday in Jamaica, by observing a moment’s silence at 1.43 pm.
“Although Mr Keith Stanford Sobion became an attorney-at-law, his interest in politics began in his early years as a student of St Mary’s College and his experience of the social upheaval of the 1970s and the Black Power Movement,” Beckles told the chamber in a short address.
Beckles was at one stage a student of Sobion, in the same class with Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the Siparia MP, when both attended the Hugh Wooding Law School.
The Deputy Speaker pointed out that Sobion would later go on to call for the establishment of the family court during his tenure as AG between 1991 and 1995 and that he was the first West Indian trained lawyer to head the Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica.
Sobion was also at one stage nominated to be House Speaker on April 6, 2002.
Persad-Bissessar said Sobion’s legacy will live on through the countless students who were, at one stage or the other, taught by him.
“It is his students who will shape the jurisprudence of the region and by extension the individual and collect societies of the region,” she said.
“As a former lecturer...he contributed to molding legal minds of the region,” she said, “it is there I think that his legacy will live on, in his students who have now become lawyers, some have become judges some of whom are legislators.”
She invited Beckles to reminisce over their time at law school together in a class taught by Sobion. She called him an “outstanding teacher” and said he showed tremendous “class” when in 1995, he literally handed over his seat as AG to her.
“We will miss him in more ways than one. He was a colleague in the law, he was a colleague in the politics but above all Mr Sobion was a friend,” she said.
Leader of Government Business Colm Imbert said Sobion served “with distinction” in the PNM government, and Stanford Callender, the Tobago West MP, praised Sobion’s career.
The House also paid tribute to former PNM minister Dr Wilbert Winchester, who passed away last Friday. In paying tribute, Chandresh Sharma, the Fyzabad MP, implored all parliamentarians to develop “a brothership of love”.
“What we need to do is make sure we care for each other,” he said as the House remembered the deceased men.