The new­ly-re­stored and ren­o­vat­ed old Ca­bil­do Build­ing, Sackville Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day was re­opened as the Ca­bil­do Law Mu­se­um. The build­ing, a na­tion­al her­itage site, which had been in a state of dis­re­pair in the past, was re­stored by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, whose Ca­bil­do Cham­bers of­fices are an­nexed to it.

While ad­dress­ing a small gath­er­ing at the open­ing yes­ter­day, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan said the mu­se­um would serve to chron­i­cle the de­vel­op­ment of T&T's le­gal sys­tem as well as de­tail­ing the his­to­ry and work of past at­tor­neys gen­er­al. He said the restora­tion works were fi­nanced us­ing sur­plus funds from his of­fice's bud­get al­lo­ca­tion. The cost of the project has been es­ti­mat­ed at a lit­tle over $300,000. The work was co-or­di­nat­ed by the His­tor­i­cal Restora­tion Unit of the Min­istry of Works and In­fra­struc­ture.

Ram­lo­gan said: "His­to­ry does not on­ly show you where we have been but it maps where we are go­ing. Many peo­ple pass by this build­ing and do not recog­nise its spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance." He said the idea to re­store the build­ing was sup­port­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar who al­so served as at­tor­ney gen­er­al. He said It was an im­por­tant part of T&T's Span­ish her­itage as it served as a reg­istry and a town hall dur­ing the coun­try's era of coloni­sa­tion by Spain. The use of the Ca­bil­do as a form of lo­cal gov­ern­ment in Port-of-Spain was grad­u­al­ly phased out in the mid-1800s dur­ing British coloni­sa­tion.

"As we cel­e­brate the gold­en ju­bilee of our In­de­pen­dence it would be un­for­tu­nate not to ho­n­our one of the relics of our past. Here stands one of the sym­bols of our mul­ti-cul­tur­al so­ci­ety and her­itage," Ram­lo­gan added. The build­ing, an ex­am­ple of Span­ish ar­chi­tec­ture, has been out­fit­ted with hard­wood floors, ceil­ings and doors which were con­struct­ed with lo­cal lum­ber.

The in­tri­cate and elab­o­rate fur­ni­ture which adorn the rooms of the small one-sto­ry build­ing was hand­craft­ed in Cal­i­for­nia, Unit­ed States, by a Mex­i­can who spe­cialis­es in Span­ish-styled fur­ni­ture. At the cen­tre of the build­ing is a shad­ed court­yard which fea­tures a sculpt­ed foun­tain, spe­cial­ly cho­sen to re­sem­ble one which was in­stalled in the build­ing when it was con­struct­ed.

The mu­se­um is ex­pect­ed to fea­ture doc­u­ments and man­u­scripts orig­i­nal­ly stored at the build­ing but were re­moved af­ter its use had de­clined. Span­ish am­bas­sador, Joaquin De Aris­tegui, who spoke at the cer­e­mo­ny, pledge his gov­ern­ment's sup­port of the project. De Aris­tegui said his gov­ern­ment had com­mis­sioned a book which would give a de­tailed his­tor­i­cal ac­count of Span­ish his­to­ry in T&T and al­so around the Caribbean.

The book is ex­pect­ed to be launched on Span­ish Na­tion­al Day on Oc­to­ber 12. De Aris­tegui al­so said dig­i­tal repli­cas of sev­er­al rare maps and doc­u­ments re­lat­ing to T&T, which were stored in the Span­ish mu­se­um, would be do­nat­ed by the Span­ish Gov­ern­ment to lo­cal mu­se­ums. The Ca­bil­do Law Mu­se­um is ex­pect­ed to be open to the pub­lic next month af­ter a cu­ra­tor is re­cruit­ed to man­age it.