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           EULOGY AT HOLY SACRAMENT

BY DAVID ROWE

When I received the information that my father had died suddenly in the Turks & Caicos Islands, I realized that a triumphant life had ended, as triumphant as the majestic music from the Battle Hymn of the Republic. I remembered the verse from the Battle Hymn of the Republic, one of Daddy¹s favorite hymnsŠ²He is wisdom to the mighty and succor to the brave,² succinctly described Ira DeCordova Rowe ­ wise, mighty and brave, yet humble and Christian, the little black boy from Munro. Canon McDonald asked me if I knew the profound impact of my father on the law and church in Jamaica. I said ³Yes Cannon²; let me share a few of my thoughts.

                                                         Photos by Leona Minto
WISDOM

Ira DeCordova Rowe was an erudite legal scholar, one of the brightest of his generation. After taking the Colonial 3rd year examination and obtaining a distinction, he went to Munro College for one year in 1944, the first black youngster to attend that school. This was acknowledged by the eminent colleague the late, Ian Ramsey, Q.C. in a speech to the assembled Jamaica Bench and Bar in 1994. To quote Mr. Ramsey ³Ira Rowe broke the color bar at Munro². History tells us that the first three blacks to attend Munro were Ira, Ian Ramsey, and Vin Lumsden. Daddy¹s father, William Rowe from Dalton, St. Elizabeth, sold all his produce and cows to pay the 8 pounds per term school fee and then William Rowe went to Florida as a farm worker to replenish his assets. Ira Rowe never forgot this and invested and emphasized his children¹s education. My first gift was the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Ira¹s wisdom made him grab his opportunity at Munroe with both hands and he passed Latin and English at Advanced Level. Ira¹s wisdom piloted him up through the Jamaica Civil Service Morass ­ Clerk of the Courts, Legal Attaché of the Jamaica High Commission in London, setting up the first Jamaican passport office overseas, Solicitor General, Supreme Court judge, Court of Appeal Judge and then President of the Court of Appeal. The newly independent Jamaica and our early patriots relied heavily on the young Ira Rowe¹s barristerial expertise. I remember as a curious 6 year old hearing Sir Donald Sangster summoning my father to Bush Cottage near New Castle to give legal advice to the Cabinet as Solicitor General. The late Norman Manley¹s calls were as frequent. The five or six year old David would answer the phone only to encounter the melodious British bur of the late Norman Manley or the African lilt of the late Victor Grant; then Attorney General.
Through his ascent, Ira Rowe¹s wisdom never prevented him form forgetting Dalton District and St. Elizabeth. I remember him busily redoing a guest list submitted at a function honoring him by the city fathers of Santa Cruz to include the peasant, farmers, stone masons and shopkeepers from Dalton District, Potsdam, Malvern and Top Hill, who had originally been omitted from the program in favor of the land owners, lawyers and businessmen. He kept the same wide circle of friends. Many of those who attended his wedding to Audrey Stewart, my Mother in 1958 also attended his funeral in 2004. His wisdom was recognized at Lincoln¹s Inn by R.E. Megarry, the author of Megarry on Torts, who with his famous lisp has said ³One Woe Did a Fabulous Paper on Torts². Forty-seven years later, the Treasurer of Lincoln¹s Inn after reading the Times¹ announcement characterized Judge Rowe¹s death in a letter to me as "the loss of a great man."

                

Judge Rowe¹s wisdom made him a judge who showed kindness to the common man. I can never forget his refusal to send a Rastafarian on the Portland circuit to jail on a ganja charge when he suspected that the Police might cut his hair in jail and violate his constitutional rights. The Rastafarian received a stern judicial warning instead. 
When I returned from his passionately huge funeral in Jamaica, I encountered a Plantation Police car at my residence, only to learn that this senior Plantation Police Officer was previously a Jamaican Police Officer who knew my father well and remembered that in 1966 my father had taken him to the R.A.F. Club at Curphy Place which was at that time off-limits to most Jamaican Police Officers.
His wisdom led him to the authorship of two of the major decisions in Caribbean Jurisprudence.
(1) Rv. Trevor Stone which upheld constitutionality of the Gun Court and recognized the physical danger that jurors face in Jamaica gun trials.
(2) Rv. Oliver Whylie which set the common law standard throughout the Caribbean for identification of criminal suspects; establishing the need for corroboration of a single accuser.
He had wisdom to drink and dance and live life to the maximum.

He was an expert on the Jamaican Constitution which he knew by heart and knew all of the pre-independence decisions relating to it as well. Any question posed to him on the Constitution required 30 minutes of exposition and recitation.

MIGHTY

He remained the little black boy from Dalton his entire life, he had no airs. When Rosemarie Robinson-Rowe asked him should a particular case be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, he responded by reciting a verse from a poem ³Consider the world a hill, look where the thousands stop, they always congregate in the middle, there is plenty room at the top.² Despite his humble beginnings, he always believed that ³there is plenty room at the top² and he always strove to be there.

                                       

He was President of the Court of Appeal of Belize at the time of death, and he was formerly President of the Court of Appeals of Jamaica. The double presidencies were a signal honor. The only man ever to have held significant Judicial Presidencies in both Central America, and the Caribbean. He served also as a Judge of Appeal of the Cayman Islands, Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, where he was serving at the time of death.
€ He was Jamaica¹s delegate to the UN, 1965 & 1965.
€ He was Chairman of Codrington College, the oldest Anglican theological college in the Western Hemisphere. The current Chairman of the college spoke at his funeral. For those who do not know, Codrington College located in Barbados and founded in 1710 is the oldest most prestigious Anglican theological College outside of England.
€ He was Chancellor of the Anglican Diocese of Jamaica, the longest serving Chancellor.
€ He was President of the Jamaica-Korea Friendship Society at the time when Korea and Jamaica¹s relationship was in its infancy. That relationship is now strong and very beneficial to Jamaica. He loved the Korean work ethic.
€ He was concerned about the rights of Victims of Crime and that their rights are balanced against the rights of the accused. He was Delegate and Principal Speaker of the U.N. World Conference on victim logy in Zagreb, Yugoslavia in 1985.
€ The United Nations appointed him as an Expert on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders for the 7th and 8th United Nations Congresses in Ottawa and Vienna respectively.
€ He championed the causes of advocacy as the Principal Speaker at the 9th Commonwealth Law Conference held in Auckland, New Zealand and was the Principal Judge for the Most Court Competition. He encouraged the very highest standards of advocacy and endorsed the formation of the Advocates Association of Jamaica by Norman Linton. 
€ Jamaica recompensed his wisdom and might with the conferring of the O.J. in 1984. He was not yet 55 years old. He lived through exciting times.

I was happy when Dahlia Walker honored my father in comments through the Caribbean Bar to the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel. In 1983, 21 years ago, before there was a Caribbean Bar Association and when there were very few Caribbean lawyers in Florida, my father facilitated a visit by the Florida Bar Executive to Jamaica led by the President of the Florida Bar James Rinaman to meet with the Prime Minister of Jamaica and the Judiciary. There is a memento of that trip in your program.

                                

BRAVE     

He was a courageous man. Judgy, Concrete, Mass Ira, Death Rowe, Judge Dread, Justice were just some of his nicknames.
Cool, serene temperament, committed to justice for all.

1. He told the story of how he advised the 1965 Cabinet 
against the bulldozing of a Back-o-Wall squatters settlement without notice to the residents and had to be rescued by Sir Alexander Bustamante who declared in his unique style ³Oono mek de bwoy talk.²

2. As a Trial Judge, he set the Green Bay murder case for trial in the teeth of political hostility during the Manley administration. This case involved the trial of sitting army officers for murder in Jamaica, the only one of its type in history.
3. He resigned from the Court of Appeal in the Bahamas when the Bahamian Government refused to open the Bahamian Court of Appeal to hear a request for an injunction against Bahamas Air. When I asked him about the rationale for his decision, his response was ­ ³David when people cannot go to Court, there is no Court.²
4. He made absolute bank secrecy in the Cayman Islands subject to review in cases of corporate and computer fraud. 
5. He wrote decisions to protect the environment of Belize against rampant development.
6. He was in the Arbitration panel that awarded Millwood a sum of money when the Government of Jamaica violated the N.T.S.C. contract. Governments should honor their contracts too.

Perhaps his greatest achievement was to have been brave enough to remain a man of the people while maintaining high standards of behavior. He spoke the Queens English; he rarely raised his voice while presiding in Court.

He was proudest of his championship of the Family Law Committee, which resulted in the abandonment of the concept of illegitimacy in Jamaica and the Status of Children Act. When the Act was passed, the late Huntley Monroe, Q.C. called him ³the butter of the legal profession,² at an event at Curphey Place. I remember Daddy telling me with tears in his eyes about the Family Law Committee report,²David there are no bastards in Jamaica!²
He had the bravery to maintain rock-like integrity in changing times. The Hon. Jim Kerr and daddy, the long and short of the legal profession, so to speak in Jamaica, would celebrate over their accounts as Deputy clerks in Westmoreland to the very penny.
Sir Alexander Bustamante called him the one handed barrister because his advice was always direct, simple and straightforward. He never said on one hand this or on the other hand that.
He thought highly of female advocates and lawyers when this was not fashionable. He frequently spoke highly of Hilary Phillips, Q.C., all female lawyers from different jurisdictions and eras, whom he encouraged and supported.
He believed in social reform legislation to correct poverty. He thought that St. Elizabeth should benefit form the bauxite revenue which currently goes to the Central Government in Kingston, Jamaica. He thought it should be put in a lock box for the benefit of students from poor St. Elizabeth families, especially from the Santa Cruz Mountains where the bauxite is mined. He proposed, sponsored, agitated and supported a Police College for Police Officers who had not had the opportunity to tertiary education. Yet his condemnation of Police Officers for pre-trial execution of accused persons in Jamaica led to the establishment of the Political Ombudsman.

       

He was brave enough to be a Christian gentleman in an era when standards were falling. He had no illegitimate children.
He was in support of an Independent Caribbean Court once the Caribbean Governments could demonstrate financial responsibility to guarantee the independence of the Judiciary, and the Rule of Law.    
He was received by the Queen on four occasions and Buckingham Palace shocked my secretary Colleen, last week, when they confirmed with our office, the dispatch of a private letter of condolence from Her Majesty, the Queen of England. 
He would ask simple yet devastating questions. He had a penchant for the bottom line. In 1993, he asked me ³David, how many Jamaicans can pay your Holland & Knight rate of 
$300.00 and hour?² The question set me thinking. My wife and I now have a small public interest law firm in Carol City.
His funeral in Jamaica was beautiful and heavily attended. Foreign Chief Justices, Jamaican Parliamentarians, Lawyers, Judges, Captains of Industry and poor people from St. Elizabeth, all rubbed shoulders together to pay tribute. In fact, some of the late attending dignitaries could not get in. Who can look behind the comment of the unfortunate red seam officer on Old Hope Road who shouted to his colleague ³Man they should have had this at the National Arena².
When will someone of his ilk pass on this road again? May he R.I.P. Ira Rowe, O.J., Q.C. wise, mighty and brave.
The little black boy from St. Elizabeth.
Eminent Caribbean Jurist.
Christian and Gentleman.
Thank you.

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