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Honouring the big three

Published:Sunday | July 31, 2011 | 12:00 AM
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Let's hear it for them. The honourees at The Jamaican Bar Association Annual Banquet, (from left) Justice Ferdinand Smith, Howard Hamilton, QC, and Chris Bovell, show off their citations.
Senator Marlene Malahoo Forte (left) and Chief Justice Zaila McCalla take in the action.
The beautiful Justice Ingrid Mangatal.
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Daviot Kelly, Staff Reporter

The Jamaican Bar Association honoured three legal stalwarts at its annual banquet on July 22. Justice Ferdinand Smith, Christopher Bovell and Howard Hamilton, QC, were feted by their colleagues.

Such is the high regard in which the trio are held by their colleagues, that The Jamaica Pegasus hotel's main ballroom was packed to its capacity as colleagues, family members and old friends came to see them lauded.

The president of the association, Ian Wilkinson, reminded his colleagues that the bar has a duty to Jamaica while expressing his hopes for the organisation's increased presence in the western end of the island. He quipped that he wore gold to the event as he felt the bar association was about to embark on a golden age (if it wasn't already in one). Perennial crowd-pleasers, Warm 'N' Easy, went through their repertoire with ease, gaining applause for such favourites as Sweet Caroline, Do You Know The Way to San Jose and Always And Forever.

The citations spoke volumes of the respect the honourees had earned. Smith, appointed a Supreme Court judge in 1988, is best known for his many years at the Norman Manley Law School where he served as course director and taught criminal procedures. Bovell was called a man of impeccable integrity, the story being that one former prime minister was overheard stating that Bovell was "a man with whom one can safely leave one's wallet".

Hamilton, nicknamed 'Hambone' in school, has been a champion for justice for 52 years, having learned from two of the best - Dudley Thompson and Ian Ramsay.

Guests out included Chief Justice Zaila McCalla, Court of Appeal President Justice Seymour Panton, Transport Minister Mike Henry and wife Dawn, Public Defender Earl Witter, Mark and Sandra Golding, John Leiba, Justice Paul Harrison, Samuel Bulgin, Ransford Braham, Ann-Marie Feanny, Gordon and Diane Tewani, Michael and Keva Hylton, Ambassador Elinor Sherlock, Arlene Harrison-Henry, Valerie Neita-Robertson, Mark and Paula Kerr-Jarrett, Patrick Atkinson, Michael and Marcia Erskine, Winston Fearon, Sharon and Dwight Moore, Robert Collie, Shelly-Ann Wilson-Henry, Nancy Anderson, Monique Cohen, Ruby Martin, Aubyn and Tamara Hill, Milverton and Mignonette Reynolds, Andrea Bickhoff-Benjamin and Lorna Myers.


Photos by Colin Hamilton/Freelance Photographer