Derek Achong

The of­fi­cial fu­ner­al for for­mer chief jus­tice Michael de la Bastide will take place next Thurs­day.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, a short while ago, de la Bastide's wife Si­mone con­firmed that his fu­ner­al will take place at the Church of the As­sump­tion in Mar­aval at 10 am, on April 11.

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne con­firmed that the Gov­ern­ment was as­sist­ing his fam­i­ly with the fu­ner­al arrange­ments.

Browne said: "We are cur­rent­ly work­ing close­ly with the de la Bastide fam­i­ly, with the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the CCJ, the Ju­di­cia­ry, and oth­er key stake­hold­ers in the plan­ning process for an of­fi­cial fu­ner­al in hon­or of the out­stand­ing life and ser­vice of Michael de la Bastide."

de la Bastide, who served as this coun­try's sev­enth post-In­de­pen­dence Chief Jus­tice, passed away on Sat­ur­day morn­ing.

de la Bastide, a for­mer stu­dent of St Mary's Col­lege, worked at the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, af­ter com­plet­ing his le­gal stud­ies at Christ Church Col­lege of Ox­ford Uni­ver­si­ty in the Unit­ed King­dom.

In 1975, he was made a Queen's Coun­sel at the age of 38.

Af­ter serv­ing as an In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor be­tween 1976 and 1981, he served as Law As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent from 1987 to 1990.

He was made Chief Jus­tice in 1995. The fol­low­ing year, he was award­ed the Trin­i­ty Cross, the coun­try's high­est ho­n­our be­fore it was re­placed with the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T (ORTT).

Af­ter he re­tired from the T&T Ju­di­cia­ry in 2002, de la Bastide be­came the first Pres­i­dent of the CCJ.

He re­tired from the po­si­tion in 2011.

de la Bastide's pass­ing means that there are no longer any sur­viv­ing re­tired chief jus­tices as Clint Bernard, who pre­ced­ed him, and Sat Shar­ma, who suc­ceed­ed him, both died in 2019.