Former prime minister Basdeo Panday will receive an award at tonight’s Law Association Annual Dinner and Dance, for his more than 50 years of service as an attorney-at-law. Panday has also been invited to deliver the feature address at the event which will be held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain at 8 pm. Also receiving an award for more than 50 years’ service is Nath Sharma, the brother of former Chief Justice Sat Sharma.
Contacted yesterday, Panday said he was honoured to receive the award. Panday, who served as prime minister between 1995 and 2001, was called to the local bar in 1962. Serval years before, he was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in England, after completing studies in law, economics and drama. When he returned to Trinidad, Panday practised law and became involved in trade unions, becoming president general of the All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers' Trade Union in 1973.
He entered Parliament in September 1972 as an Opposition senator and served as MP for Couva North over 20 years. “Things have changed quite a bit since then. Back then there was not a law school in Trinidad. One would have to have studied Latin and gone to England to be admitted in one of the Inns of Court,” Panday said.