RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Fyz­abad say they are elat­ed that an­oth­er son of the soil, this time Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh, has at­tained high of­fice, as the ninth Chief Jus­tice of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In 2013, the com­mu­ni­ty erupt­ed in joy when for­mer pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona was named and lat­er sworn in as the coun­try’s fifth head of state.

At Pep­per Vil­lage, Fyz­abad, where Jus­tice Boodoos­ingh grew up, the mood was one of pride and re­flec­tion. His cousin Kr­ish Boodoos­ingh told Guardian Me­dia that the new Chief Jus­tice at­tend­ed Pep­per Vil­lage Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School and lat­er Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, be­fore pur­su­ing a dis­tin­guished ca­reer in law.

Say­ing it was a proud day for the Boodoos­ingh fam­i­ly, Kr­ish said every­one was deeply proud of the achieve­ment.

“His par­ents, Lal and Leela, made many sac­ri­fices to send him to school. He was al­ways fo­cused and hard­work­ing.”

Kr­ish said his cousin’s up­bring­ing in the oil­fields gave him a ground­ing in fair­ness and in­tegri­ty.

“He knows the strug­gles his fa­ther went through work­ing in Tex­a­co. That up­bring­ing built dis­ci­pline. He was al­ways hon­est and com­mit­ted.”

He said Boodoos­ingh’s fa­ther was one of 11 chil­dren, and they grew up with­out elec­tric­i­ty or run­ning wa­ter. Each of the sib­lings en­sured they saved and sent their chil­dren to school so that they could have a bet­ter life.

Near Sewlal Trace, where Boodoos­ingh once lived, res­i­dents echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments about the ex­tend­ed Boodoos­ingh fam­i­ly.

Steve Ran­jit said the ap­point­ment was good for both the ju­di­cia­ry and the com­mu­ni­ty, say­ing peo­ple were fed up of ris­ing crimes and ju­di­cial back­logs.

“All of Trinidad will feel proud. He came from Fyz­abad and worked his way up. Now he has to do his job and make good de­ci­sions.”

Taxi dri­ver Farzan Ali al­so ex­pressed pride.

“I feel proud. We want him to help fix the sys­tem and deal with crime. He knows what peo­ple in the coun­try are fac­ing.”

Shel­don Daniel, an­oth­er res­i­dent, said the na­tion’s biggest is­sue was jus­tice de­layed.

“We need faster jus­tice. Too many peo­ple are wait­ing too long. If he can fix that, it will help the coun­try.” Oth­ers were more di­rect in their calls for re­form. Bis­soondai Sam­path said: “We want him to do some­thing about crime. Bring back the hang­man. That’s the on­ly way things will change.” Rel­a­tives said the Chief Jus­tice, who now lives in Palmiste, told them he un­der­stands the mag­ni­tude of the role and has asked for the na­tion’s prayers.

“He told us to keep him in our prayers be­cause he knows it’s a dif­fi­cult job.”

More about Boodoos­ingh

Boodoos­ingh at­tend­ed Pep­per Vil­lage Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School, where he ex­celled aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly, lat­er earn­ing a place at Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do.

He went on to study law at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) and lat­er grad­u­at­ed from the Hugh Wood­ing Law School, where he re­turned as a lec­tur­er.

Boodoos­ingh be­gan his le­gal ca­reer in the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP), where he earned a rep­u­ta­tion for dili­gence and in­tegri­ty. He was lat­er ap­point­ed a Judge of the High Court and sub­se­quent­ly el­e­vat­ed to the Court of Ap­peal.

Be­yond the bench, Boodoos­ingh has con­tributed to le­gal ed­u­ca­tion and re­form, par­tic­u­lar­ly in ar­eas of crim­i­nal pro­ce­dure, ju­di­cial ethics, and case man­age­ment.

He is mar­ried to at­tor­ney Aber­leen Boodoos­ingh, and they have one daugh­ter named Amiya.