Geisha Kow­lessar

Promi­nent Queen's Coun­sel Karl Hud­son-Phillips was re­mem­bered yes­ter­day as a pow­er­ful lu­mi­nary, a classy politi­cian and a larg­er-than-life char­ac­ter who dom­i­nat­ed the po­lit­i­cal and le­gal land­scape dur­ing his dis­tin­guished ca­reer. He was a for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al and a for­mer judge of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court and was award­ed the coun­try's high­est ho­n­our, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of T&T, in 2010.The trib­utes came in af­ter Hud­son-Phillips, 80, passed away peace­ful­ly in his sleep in the Unit­ed King­dom on Wednes­day. He was re­port­ed­ly there to at­tend a birth­day cel­e­bra­tion for his son.The news of his pass­ing made re­gion­al head­lines, in­clud­ing be­ing re­port­ed in the Ja­maica Ob­serv­er and Grena­da's Spi­ceIs­lander Talk­Shop, which post­ed brief de­tails of his pass­ing from as ear­ly as 7 am yes­ter­day.

Hud­son-Phillips' sud­den death plunged the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty in­to mourn­ing, how­ev­er, and many se­nior at­tor­neys yes­ter­day could not come to terms with the fact that he was gone for good.

Pres­i­dent of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion Seenath Jairam, SC, de­scribed Hud­son-Phillips as a pow­er­ful "le­gal lu­mi­nary and an out­stand­ing and for­mi­da­ble ad­vo­cate," whose ca­reer spanned over 50 years at the lo­cal and re­gion­al bars."He was a men­tor, friend and bene­fac­tor to count­less ju­nior coun­sel/at­tor­neys around the re­gion. He will be sore­ly missed," Jairam said.While they were close col­leagues, Jairam was chas­tised by Hud­son-Phillips in 2012 for ac­cept­ing a Cli­co brief from the Min­istry of Fi­nance, along with ju­nior coun­sel Joseph Toney and Jagdeo Singh.Hud­son-Phillips had al­so called on Jairam to step down as pres­i­dent of the as­so­ci­a­tion.

For­mer chief jus­tice Sat Shar­ma said yes­ter­day said he was "ab­solute­ly flab­ber­gast­ed" by Hud­son-Phillips' death."A for­mer judge called me this morn­ing (yes­ter­day) to tell me my very good friend had died. I can­not be­lieve it ... I still can­not be­lieve it now, be­cause when I last spoke to him he was fine. He was in ex­cel­lent health," Shar­ma added.Say­ing he had spo­ken to Hud­son-Phillips some three weeks ago, Shar­ma said Hud­son-Phillips was seek­ing in­for­ma­tion about he book he was writ­ing."I would call the book an au­to­bi­og­ra­phy and he promised to give me a copy when he had fin­ished it," Shar­ma re­called. "I don't think he would have com­plet­ed it, be­cause he want­ed to find out in­for­ma­tion about events dur­ing his ear­ly ca­reer." Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan, who is al­so chair­man of the Le­gal Aid and Ad­vi­so­ry Au­thor­i­ty, said Hud­son-Phillips, a for­mer pres­i­dent of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, did not think twice about help­ing young at­tor­neys."He even helped me. He was my men­tor. When­ev­er I found my­self in dif­fi­cul­ty in re­la­tion to the law or car­ry­ing out my du­ties I would go to him and he would guide me," Khan said. "In­ci­den­tal­ly, it was just yes­ter­day evening (Wednes­day) the au­thor­i­ty ap­point­ed him to lead ses­sions to train at­tor­neys on how to present a case with the crim­i­nal courts."

For­mer chief jus­tice and pres­i­dent of the ICC, Michael de la Bastide, said the death was quite un­ex­pect­ed.He said: "I want to ex­press my con­do­lence to his wife and chil­dren. He was a per­son who held a num­ber of im­por­tant of­fices and made a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the le­gal pro­fes­sion and to the coun­try as a whole. He was al­so a dis­tin­guished le­gal prac­ti­tion­er who was well re­spect­ed."To the very end, Hud­son-Phillips, in keep­ing abreast of ma­jor events in so­ci­ety, of­ten chal­lenged the sta­tus quo when he felt things were go­ing astray, of­ten grab­bing news­pa­per head­lines in the process.In Oc­to­ber last year, for ex­am­ple, he had hint­ed at pos­si­ble le­gal ac­tion chal­leng­ing the va­lid­i­ty of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC), if Par­lia­ment con­firmed Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona's nom­i­na­tion of for­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor James Arm­strong and Roa­mar Achat-Saney to the com­mis­sion. The three re­ceived their let­ters in ap­point­ment last De­cem­ber and there was no chal­lenge to the ap­point­ments.

CJ: For­mi­da­ble fig­ure

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, on be­half of the Ju­di­cia­ry, al­so laud­ed Hud­son-Phillips."Karl Hud­son-Phillips QC un­der­took the prac­tice of the law with gus­to and con­sid­er­able skill and was a for­mi­da­ble fig­ure on all fronts of the pro­fes­sion, be it in de­fence or pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al roles," a re­lease from Jones P Madeira, Court Pro­to­col and In­for­ma­tion Man­ag­er, said.It not­ed that Hud­son-Phillips's tri­umphs be­fore the courts in­clud­ed many mat­ters which can be re­gard­ed as land­mark cas­es."The Ho­n­ourable Chief Jus­tice wish­es to ex­tend his con­do­lences to the Hud­son-Phillips fam­i­ly, on his own be­half and that of all of the Ju­di­cia­ry, on the oc­ca­sion of this quite un­ex­pect­ed pass­ing."The Ju­di­cia­ry joins the law fra­ter­ni­ty, and in­deed the en­tire na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, in mourn­ing the death of Mr Karl Hud­son Phillips, Queens Coun­sel."The re­lease said dur­ing his life­time, Hud­son-Phillips pro­vid­ed yeo­man ser­vice to the coun­try and lat­er be­came a judge of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court, paving the way for greater and very pos­i­tive in­ter­na­tion­al scruti­ny and recog­ni­tion of the qual­i­ty of lo­cal ju­rists."The courts and the prac­tice of law have lost a sig­nif­i­cant pres­ence. The Ju­di­cia­ry salutes this le­gal lu­mi­nary and his im­pres­sive record."The re­lease al­so not­ed that Hud­son-Phillips's so­journ out­side his main pro­fes­sion­al call­ing was equal­ly im­pactive and con­tributed to sig­nif­i­cant changes to the po­lit­i­cal land­scape of T&T.

Le­gal Ca­reer

Hud­son-Phillips was lead coun­sel in the Grena­di­an mur­der tri­als re­sult­ing from the as­sas­si­na­tion of Prime Min­is­ter Mau­rice Bish­op in Oc­to­ber 1983.Among his suc­cess­ful pros­e­cu­tions were those of Naresh Boodram, Joey Rami­ah and Michael "Rat" Ma­haraj for the mur­ders of An­tho­ny "Tooks" Greenidge and Stephen "Bulls" Sandy.He led the de­fence for Seero­mani Maraj-Narayns­ingh, who was ac­cused of want­i­ng Dr Chan­dra Narayns­ingh, wife of Prof Vi­jay Narayns­ingh, dead.Maraj-Narayns­ingh is Prof Narayns­ingh's sec­ond wife.The pro­fes­sor, Maraj-Narayns­ingh and San Fer­nan­do busi­ness­man El­ton Ra­masir went on tri­al for Chan­dra's mur­der.Again in his role as a de­fence at­tor­ney, Hud­son-Phillips rep­re­sent­ed for­mer gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Dhan­raj Singh, who was de­scribed as the mas­ter­mind in the shoot­ing death of UNC coun­cil­lor Han­sraj Sumairs­ingh. Singh, who was ac­quit­ted, died in 2011.

He al­so led the pros­e­cu­tion's case in the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in­to mur­der charges brought against 11 men charged for the mur­der of Xtra Foods CEO Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man.Hud­son-Phillips was se­lect­ed to lead the State's mur­der and trea­son case against the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen be­fore they were par­doned by the then act­ing Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Carter.While he was at­tor­ney gen­er­al, he pros­e­cut­ed Ab­dul "Michael X" Mal­ick for the Ari­ma mur­der of British so­cialite Gail-Ann Ben­son.In Feb­ru­ary 2003, Hud­son-Phillips was elect­ed to the first ever bench of In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC) judges.As "dean of the judges," he chaired the first meet­ings of judges be­fore the elec­tion of the pres­i­den­cy. He al­so con­tributed ac­tive­ly to the draft­ing of the reg­u­la­tions of the court. He re­signed from the court for per­son­al rea­sons on March 14, 2007.He read law at Sel­wyn Col­lege, Cam­bridge and in 1959 he was called to the bar at Gray's Inn, Lon­don. He re­turned to T&T, where he es­tab­lished a dis­tin­guished le­gal prac­tice and was ap­point­ed Queen's Coun­sel in 1970.

Karl's pol­i­tics

Hud­son-Phillips was a PNM MP from 1966 to 1976, and be­tween 1969 and 1973 he served as at­tor­ney gen­er­al and min­is­ter of le­gal af­fairs. He was as­so­ci­at­ed with the no­to­ri­ous Pub­lic Or­der Act, which was pro­posed by the PNM gov­ern­ment in re­sponse to the Black Pow­er ri­ots and army mutiny of 1970.For his hand in this law, he was im­mor­talised in the song Ah Fraid Karl in 1972 by the Dr Hol­lis "Mighty Chalk­dust" Liv­er­pool.In 1973 he fell out of favour with Prime Min­is­ter Er­ic Williams, whom he planned to chal­lenge as PNM leader.In 1974 Hud­son-Phillips found­ed the Na­tion­al Land Ten­ants and Ratepay­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion. In 1981 his Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Na­tion­al Re­con­struc­tion (ONR), which he had found­ed in 1980, con­test­ed the 1981 gen­er­al elec­tion, but did not win a sin­gle seat de­spite get­ting the sec­ond-high­est num­ber of votes.The ONR formed an ac­com­mo­da­tion with the Na­tion­al Al­liance to con­test the 1983 lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions and merged with it to form the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR).The NAR won 33 of the 36 seats in the 1986 gen­er­al elec­tion, but Hud­son-Phillips played no fur­ther role in the par­ty.