The Honorable Paul Lawrence Adderley, a committed Anglican and a man of deep faith ...chose instead the path of national service; one which ultimately would assure that his labor would not be in vain

A tribute to Paul Adderley

Dear Editor,

 

The Honorable Paul Lawrence Adderley, was one of the two children of A.F. Adderley, a well-known and highly esteemed Bahamian lawyer.  Adderley was born in 1928, a time when there was not a large cadre of Bahamian professionals and few black Bahamian lawyers.  Especially being a graduate of Cambridge University and a U.K. trained barrister, he could have chosen to dedicate his life to private practice and to making a lot of money.  Indeed, had he chosen the private practice life, his law firm would probably today have been one of the leading law firms in The Bahamas, if not the leading law firm in The Bahamas.

Adderley, a committed Anglican and a man of deep faith, chose instead the path of national service; one which ultimately would assure that his labor would not be in vain.

Recognizing that politics is a noble profession and a significant means by which there can be fundamental transformation of a society for the benefit of all, he joined the movement to universal suffrage, self-government, majority rule and independence.  He was the longest serving attorney general in The Bahamas, as well as serving in other critical Cabinet portfolios and as acting governor general.  His stellar tenure as attorney general has not been forgotten.

He was at the genesis of the first “third political party”, the National Democratic Party.  He was at the vanguard of the fight for a thriving democracy in The Bahamas.  Certainly, history will record Adderley as one of The Bahamas’ founding fathers and the nation will forever be grateful for his tremendous sacrifices.

I celebrate and am thankful for the living example of Adderley’s commitment to family, his unquenchable thirst for knowledge, his spirit of excellence, his loyalty to friends and his work to accomplish his vision of The Bahamas as a home of and for the brightest and the best.  He believed that The Bahamas is the “best little country in the world”.

Deepest sympathy and prayers are extended to his wife, Lillith Adderley, and his daughters, Catherine, Roseanne and Paula who have lost a husband and father.  The Bahamas has lost one of its brightest and best.  May his soul rest in peace.

 

– Allyson Maynard-Gibson, attorney general

Sep 20, 2012

thenassauguardian

Prime Minister The Rt. Hon. Perry G. Christie Pays Tribute to the late Paul Laurence Adderley

Paul Laurence Adderley Remembered

I am deeply saddened by the news of the passing this morning of one of our nation’s finest sons, my very dear friend, confidante and political colleague of many years, the Honourable Paul Laurence Adderley.  This is a grave loss for our country, for myself personally, and for the many thousands of Bahamians whose lives were touched by this truly remarkable human being and nationalist over the course of his more than forty years of distinguished service to the Bahamian people.

Mr. Adderley was a man of extraordinary intellectual brilliance.  His accomplishments were legion.  Indeed it is quite impossible to overstate the importance of his many and varied contributions to the development of our nation.

As the longest serving Attorney-General of the 20th century – a period spanning some 17 years – Mr. Adderley engineered the transition of our colonial legal system into a new era of constitutional sovereignty while overseeing the modernization of our laws in so many vital areas of national life.  In so doing, he also expanded the judiciary and helped deepen the Rule of Law as the bedrock of our civilization.

As Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Adderley was the primary architect of the nation’s foreign policy in the founding years of nationhood; a foreign policy based on mutual co-operation and friendship with our neighbours but always within the context of the principles of self-determination and sovereign independence.  Mr. Adderley was absolutely determined that The Bahamas, though small, should preserve its integrity as an independent nation and never allow itself to be subjugated to any foreign power.

As Minister of National Security, Mr. Adderley was a courageous warrior against drug-trafficking.  He was chiefly responsible for a wide range of anti-drug trafficking measures, including the OPBAT joint interdiction operations; the negotiation of mutual legal assistance treaties; and the introduction of a raft of new laws aimed at curbing the drug trade and bringing traffickers to the bar of justice.  Concurrently, Mr. Adderley was responsible for sweeping changes to both the Royal Bahamas Police Force and the Royal Bahamas Defence Force aimed at better equipping them to discharge their law enforcement mandates in the face of newly emergent crime threats.

As Minister of Education, Mr. Adderly also achieved notable successes.  He introduced a raft of initiatives aimed at raising academic standards in the public school system.  He restricted social promotion exercises and instituted the BGCSE examination system.  He was also instrumental in expanding the Government’s building programme for new schools while instituting the Cadet Programme as a means of better preparing high school students for the transition into responsible life in the wider community.

As Minister of Finance, Mr. Adderley steered the country through the extremely difficult recessionary years of the very early 1990’s, insisting on austerity and fiscal discipline as a means of surviving the crisis.  That Mr. Adderley was able to rise to this challenge while privately battling both cancer and heart disease makes it even more awe-inspiring.

No finer example of patriotic commitment is to be found in the annals of the modern Bahamas.  But even beyond his immense achievements as a minister of the government from 1972 to 1992, Paul Adderley will also be remembered as a leader of the Bahamas Bar for nearly 60 years.

He was an advocate of incomparable skill admired by all his colleagues for the depth of his learning, the thoroughness of his research and preparation, his powerful intellect, his spellbinding oratory and, most important of all, his adherence to the highest standards of ethical propriety in all his professional dealings.  He was, like his father before him, the Hon. A.F. Adderley, a lawyer of truly legendary standing at the bar.

As a parliamentarian from 1962 to 1967 and then from 1972 to 1997, Mr. Adderley was always a fiery and meticulously prepared debater, whether in the House of Assembly or the Senate.  Uniquely, he was the fourth consecutive generation of his family to serve in the Bahamian legislature, having been preceded by his father, the Hon A.F. Adderley; and before that, by his grandfather, Wilfred Parliament Adderley; and earlier still by his great grand-uncle, William Campbell Adderley who was a member of the House of Assembly more than 130 years ago.

Faithful to this dynastic tradition, Mr. Adderley enlarged upon the accomplishments of his forebears and always gave an excellent account of himself in the halls of Parliament.  Following his retirement from frontline politics, Mr. Adderley continued to serve our country in a variety of ways, most notably as the Co-Chairman of the first Constitution Commission.

Even with all of the foregoing to the credit of his name, Mr. Adderley regarded his own family as his finest achievement.  He was a family man for whom nothing was more delightful than the time spent with his devoted wife and daughters.

Finally, it needs be said that Mr. Adderley was the very embodiment of personal integrity.  He was absolutely incorruptible.  He was a public servant of the highest order.

And yet he shunned all honours.  He refused to even consider taking a knighthood when it was offered to him and reacted in the same way whenever any other honour was offered to him over the years.  For Paul Adderley, the greatest honour of all – and the only one that really mattered – was the opportunity to serve the Bahamian people to the very best of his ability.

And he did precisely that – with great distinction – for all his adult life.  On behalf of the Government and people of The Bahamas, the Progressive Liberal Party of which Mr. Adderley was a long and faithful member and a Stalwart Councillor, on behalf of my wife, Bernadette, and on my own behalf, I extend deepest condolences to Mr. Adderley’s widow, Lilith, and their three children, Catherine, Roseanne and Paula.  A State Funeral will be held for Mr. Adderley, details of which will be announced shortly by the Cabinet Office.

September 19, 2012

myplp.org

In every way and in every segment of life the Bahamian's value system has certainly changed

The Bahamas' changing value system
tribune242 editorial


WE HAVE had several calls about our editorial of February 11, which for the first time revealed the name of an anonymous letter writer, whose identity excited political circles in 1962, but for 49 years remained a mystery. Today, few people would be interested in our mystery man, but in the political turmoil of the sixties, a British editor was threatened with prison for refusing to reveal his identity.

However, with the death of Paul Bower on January 24, memories of those few days in the Magistrate's Court in October, 1963 came flooding back. For several years speculation continued about the letter writer. Today, when it no longer matters, and few would care, we realised that we were now the last living person who knows the letter's author. For the sake of history we revealed it in this column on February 11.

The calls that we have received as a result of that column, were not about the mystery writer, now unmasked, but about the fate of Paul Bower when he refused to give the court the writer's name. No, he did not go to prison as threatened by Magistrate John Bailey, who when off the bench was one of his best friends.

The case ended suddenly when the Guardian owners decided to pay the plaintiffs' damages, and rescue their man from the edge of the cliff. Magistrate Bailey had refused the Guardian leave to appeal his decision of name or prison.

Mr Bower, who was Guardian editor from 1958 to August 1962 (two months before the case came to court in October), asked the magistrate: "What would happen should I refuse (to reveal the writer's name)?"

"You would be in contempt," the Irish magistrate replied.

"What would be the consequences?" Mr Bower pressed. "A fine or a prison sentence," the magistrate shot back.

"Ten days in Her Majesty's prison!" LB Johnson, one of the six PLP plaintiffs, demanded loudly. This exchange was followed by a luncheon adjournment. By the afternoon the case was over, Mr Bower had missed the arrow, the plaintiffs had their damages, and letter writer Bert Cambridge was still a mystery man.

Guardian lawyer James Liddell had argued that not only was the plaintiffs' complaints vexatious, but that what was being complained of before the court was the letter and its content, not the identity of the writer. But the plaintiffs were not buying that argument, nor was the magistrate. In a few weeks time there would be a general election, which the PLP were confident of winning - in fact they lost. Racism was a heavy card being played at the time, and the six PLP plaintiffs -- all lawyers - wanted to know which white man would dare question their integrity in an anonymous letter. What they did not know was that the writer was, like themselves, a black man, a former politician, whose character Mr Bower had described in glowing terms in court. Several of the plaintiffs were Bert Cambridge's friends. In fact he had given music lessons to one of them. Bert Cambridge's Orchestra was the hottest band in town in the twenties and thirties, and music was his career.

But what we find most interesting is the change over the years in public values. In those days it was seldom that one sued a newspaper for defamation, and anything over £100 in damages was certainly unheard of. And so for "An Open Letter to Mr Paul Adderley," published in The Guardian on August 21, 1962 the six lawyers -- Paul Adderley, Loftus Roker, Lynden Pindling, AD Hanna, LB Johnson and Orville Turnquest -- each asked for £100 for the damage perceived to have been done to their reputations, plus costs, which in those days would have been minimal.

However, thanks to the influence over the years of America's legal system where it almost pays to do oneself an injury in a public place and walk away with millions awarded by the courts, Bahamians have adjusted their opinion of their own worth.

In 1962, Orville Turnquest who became the Bahamas' Governor General, was not bloated up with his own importance. He obviously felt well compensated with £100 for the slight he had felt was committed against him. If he had known that it was his old piano teacher, he probably would have slapped him on the back, had a good laugh and they would have gone off to make music together.

However, today we see some of these complaints, many of them vexatious, and the value -- starting in the thousands --that persons put on their own worth and we wonder where they are coming from.

In every way and in every segment of life the Bahamian's value system has certainly changed.

February 18, 2011

tribune242 editorial

Bahamas Blog International

Constitutional Review Commission Officials At Odds about Some of The New Recommendations of The Commission - and with what the Ingraham Administration had Proposed in The 2002 Referendum

Michael Barnett, Co-deputy Chairman of the Constitutional Review Commission defends the position of the FNM government on the failed 2002 referendum

2002 Referendum Defended

 

By Candia Dames

Nassau, The Bahamas

11 April 2006

 

 

  

 

Two officials of the government-appointed Constitutional Review Commission are at odds over whether some of the new recommendations of the Commission are largely in line with what the Ingraham Administration had proposed in the 2002 referendum.

Co-deputy Chairman Michael Barnett even defended the position of the FNM government on the failed referendum, noting that the proposed changes had been supported by the then opposition in parliament and then later opposed.

"There is no radical difference in the nature of the recommendations with respect to constitutional change," said Mr. Barnett, who was one of the guests on the Love 97 programme ‘Jones and Company’ on Sunday.

He suggested that besides some "tinkering, glossing and tightening up" the recommendations of the new report "are very much the same" as what the FNM government had pushed in the referendum.

Shortly after members of the commission presented a copy of their preliminary report to Prime Minister Perry Christie last month, former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham, who is now again the leader of the FNM, noted essentially the same.

He also said that the PLP government appeared to now be suggesting that while the proposed changes were wrong under the FNM’s watch, they are now right under the PLP’s watch.

But Commission Co-chairman Paul Adderley, who was also on the Sunday programme, agreed that while Mr. Barnett was suggesting that the groundwork for what the commission is now doing was laid by the Ingraham Administration, that is not true.

He indicated that there are fundamental differences contained in the report of his commission, although he recognized that there are some similarities.

"Firstly, with regard to citizenship, no one objects to the concept of equality of women and the FNM proposal was that Bahamian women married to a foreigner [that their] children became Bahamians just like the children of Bahamian men," Mr. Adderley noted.

"That provision is exactly the same and I think everybody agrees with that."

But he pointed out that while the FNM government proposed that a foreign man who married a Bahamian woman could obtain citizenship immediately, the commission recommends that he be made to wait years before qualifying.

"That particular provision, I think, caused them more difficulty in the referendum than any other, that instantaneous citizenship," Mr. Adderley said.  "This commission proposed between five to 10 years…That is the fundamental difference…That, I think, is very, very significant."

The commission co-chairman also pointed out that the FNM government proposed that the boundaries commission still be subjected to the prime minister’s power to amend.

But the Constitutional Commission is recommending that the constitution be amended to create a truly independent electoral and boundaries commission and remove the power of the prime minister to modify the report of the commission.

Mr. Barnett then insisted again that the concepts and the ideas of the 2002 proposal and the present one are the same.

"With respect to the marriage, what was proposed during the 2002 referendum exercise, I thought, is the concept that the right that was afforded to non-Bahamian women who were married to Bahamian men…that same right should be given to a non-Bahamian male who is married to a non-Bahamian female…That very same concept is repeated in the recommendations that have been made by this report," he said, repeating Mr. Adderley’s earlier point.

Mr. Adderley, meanwhile, said there are also significant differences as they relate to the 2002 proposal on the mandatory retirement age of judges.

"The point where we disagree is with regard to the term of judges," he said.

The Ingraham Administration recommended that the retirement age of a Supreme Court judge be extended from 67 to 72; and the retirement age of a justice of the Court of Appeal be extended to 75, with the right to extend being held by the prime minister.

"Mr. Adderley said, "We have number one suggested so far that the retirement age be 70 – fixed and no question of extending it by the prime minister because we thought that would give the prime minister a little too much leverage and power."

Mr. Barnett said he still thinks that the retirement age being recommended by the commission is "too low", but he said he agreed with the concept that the prime minister should not have the power to extend the retirement age.

On the point of the 2002 referendum defeat, Mr. Barnett pointed out that the PLP while in opposition had supported the Ingraham Administration’s proposal.

"You must not forget that the proposals that had been put forward had received the unanimous support of all the members of parliament and that the people could have been educated as to why those…proposals had been made and why it was that they supported them," he said.

"[The opposition] elected not to do so and as a result of that I think we got caught up in the politics of early 2002 - and what were really sensible proposals were simply rejected…not because of the defects of the proposals or the lack of merit of the proposals because you can see many of the proposals are repeated here."

Mr. Adderley quickly said, "But don’t underestimate the people’s capacity once they are told something to think for themselves."

The commission intends to carry out another round of consultations with the Bahamian people before submitting final recommendations.

Responding to a question that was asked by the show’s host, Wendall Jones, Mr. Adderley said, "[The government doesn’t] have to accept a single word which we put down here, but a government would be a very foolish government not to accept anything we put down."

The commission makes many key provisional recommendations in its report – copies of which are available at the commission’s office in the Royal Victoria Gardens.

A few of the recommendations include abolishing the office of governor general and creating a democratic parliamentary republic with the head of state being the president; increasing the size of the senate to 23 and giving the president the power to appoint five of those senators; and eliminating gender bias from the constitution.

Prime Minister Christie has foreshadowed that a referendum will be held so Bahamians can decide on what changes would actually be made to the constitution.