Excerpt from Publisher's Note
"... Returning home in 1961, he served as Crown Counsel in the Attorney General's department for 18 months before entering private practice. In 1995, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Trinidad and Tobago, retiring in 2002. In 2004, he became the first President of the Caribbean Court of Justice. In a legal career that spanned five decades, he has been a witness to and participant in landmark events which helped shape Caribbean jurisprudence. Within these pages, readers get a close-up of that life - within the law."
About Michael de la Bastide - 1937 - 2024 (Updated 31st March 2024)
He was born in Trinidad and Tobago on 18th July 1937. He was an alumni of St Mary's College, Port of Spain, where he won an Open Scholarship (Languages) in 1954. He read law at Christ Church College of Oxford University (1956-1960), was called to the Bar in February 1961, and achieved Queen's Counsel in 1975 at the age of 38.
In 1996, Mr de la Bastide was elected an Honorary Bencher of Gray’s Inn in November 1996, and was sworn in as a member of the Privy Council in July 2004.
In Trinidad and Tobago, he served as an Independent Senator from 1976 to 1981 and as President of the Law Association (Trinidad and Tobago) from 1987 to 1990. In 1995, he was made Chief Justice of Trinidad and Tobago and was awarded the country's highest honour -Trinity Cross* in 1996. (* now the Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago -ORTT). He retired from the Trinidad and Tobago Judiciary in 2002.
Mr de la Bastide was sworn in as President of the Caribbean Court of Justice in 2004 and retired from the Court in 2011.
