The Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) has hailed late Senior Counsel Miles Fitzpatrick for his contributions to Guyana, including his “pivotal” work for free and fair elections.
In a statement issued yesterday, the GHRA noted that Fitzpatrick was one of its founding members and the organisation was “a notable beneficiary of his unfailing generosity of time and talents.”
It said the breadth of his commitment and social activism was reflected in a string of initiatives, including the New World Movement, and later the Caribbean Human Rights and Legal Aid Corporation in the 1980s.
It further said that he was able to mobilise the outstanding legal and intellectual talents across the Caribbean, including such stalwarts as Ronnie Thwaites from Jamaica, Trinidadians Lloyd Best, Frank Solomon, Bobby Clarke from Barbados, the pre-New Jewel Maurice Bishop and Frank (later Justice) Alleyne and counterparts in Suriname to fight human rights cases in the Caribbean. “His work for free and fair elections in Guyana, the most enduring issue of 1970s, ’80s and ’90s was pivotal,” it added.
The GHRA also noted that Fitzpatrick’s abiding concern for access to legal services by the poor and others who could not afford fees was felt by numerous beneficiaries of his own services and, organizationally, through the Guyana Legal Aid Company, which he was instrumental in creating.
Another unsung service, it added, was his years of weekly vigilance, along with his legal partner David de Caires, keeping the Catholic Standard out of the libel courts and the country protected from fake news. It also noted his role in Stabroek News to open up a new era in press freedom.
“In most societies his many talents would have propelled him to senior appointments, honours and prestigious awards. It is to his abiding merit that Miles Fitzpatrick distanced himself from any compromise with the repressive political context in which he spent much of his working life. The sense of integrity, ‘though disguised by the fun and ebullience, was felt by anyone who inter-acted with him in a professional, social or in a personal capacity,” it said.
“The fact that Miles Fitzpatrick’s name is unfamiliar to the younger generation of Guyanese should be counted as part of the cost we are paying as a society for the debased political culture which he spent a significant part of his life confronting,” it added, while recording its appreciation for “the privilege of sharing a small part in the life of this extra-ordinary, if under-appreciated, man.”
“Miles’ indefatigable optimism in a particularly dark period in Guyanese political life, sustained hope in more people than he could possibly have imagined. While the penetrating analysis, the incisive eloquence and the social commitment were remarkable, they were unfailingly accompanied by razor-sharp wit and a lightness of being capable of transforming the earnest into the riotous in the blink of an eye,” it noted.
