Caribbean Court of Justice Judge Peter Jamadar receives honourary doctorate from Canadian university
June 19, 2023
Triggered by his wife’s challenge to his faithless living and prompted by a sermon revolving around the Gospel of St. Luke’s reference to ‘no room in the inn’, Justice Peter Jamadar came to Emmanuel College in Toronto in 1994 to read for his Masters in Divinity.
While standing in line on his first day to be registered, the Trinidadian started a conversation with a tall curly hair man in front of him.
The stranger was the grandson of Reverend Ed Newberry, a United Church Minister, who died in 2006 at age 96.
In the 1950s while serving as a Canadian missionary in Trinidad, Newberry worked with Jamadar’s paternal great-aunt, Mary Jamadar, who was a Presbyterian Bible woman.
“That chance encounter unfolded into a most remarkable series of intersections in my life,” said the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) Judge who was conferred with an honourary degree on May 11 as part of the Victoria University Convocation and Emmanuel College graduation. “At the moment of the meeting, the sheer coincidence provided a firm assurance that the path I was choosing was right for me at that time.”
Jamadar and Newberry’s grandson, Reverend Dr. David Kim-Cragg, became close friends.
“We lived together in Lower Burwash for my second and third years at Emmanuel,” he recalled. “We had wonderful adventures, theological and of the kinds that all university students enjoy. Our friendship has survived geographic and career separations. He was following his own impulses of transcendence. To be here today to receive this honour almost three decades later and to have both David and HyeRan (David’s wife who he met at Emmanuel College in 1995) present is testament to why intersections inspire awe and wonder and invite us to seek their meaning.”
Affiliated with the United Church of Canada, Emmanuel is the theological college of Victoria University in the University of Toronto.
It equips leaders for rigorous theological inquiry, inclusive practices of justice and care, contextual analysis, creative activity and inter-faith engagement.
Jamadar said Emmanuel’s experiences and values shaped his profession and life.
“(It did) my work as a judge and my jurisprudence – especially in human rights, procedural and therapeutic justice as well as my interventions in gender, disability, LGBTQIA+ and other issues – that seek the betterment of justice for all,” he said. “My service in the Foundation for Human Development and the Presbyterian Church of Trinidad and Tobago. My roles in the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute and the Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers and broader facilitation as a judicial educator and researcher. And the leadership/service roles I play, my friendships, family life and marriage.
“Intersections of profound mystery where mere coincidence or something more, with threads of transcendence running through them all. The intersections of ancestors, parents, siblings, spouses, children, friends, mentors, peers, those who challenge us, those who inspire us, those who hold and support us and those whose presence and actions transform us. Intersections of geography, history, cultures, ideologies, ideas, faith and vocations. Indeed, intersections of the past, present and the existing unfolding futures, of the ever present now. Intersections of the particular and universal with deep soundings resonating in and through them all. All have brought me to this moment. All are in this moment. All are this moment.”
CCJ Judge Peter Jamadar was the recipient of an honourary degree at Victoria University convocation (Photo contributed)
Jamadar encouraged the graduates to look deeply into their lives and discover the intersections of salience.
“Find your own threads of transcendence,” the 1997 Emmanuel College graduate told them. “Discover their meanings. Respond and live accordingly and in integrity. Trust in your heartfelt insights. Having issued this general invitation, here is however one intersection of existential gravity that I invite us all to consider today. It is the intersection of planetary survival, cultures of consumerism, self-referential narcissism, preferences for opinion over facts compounded by the freefall of unfiltered information, and unbridled greed and quests for power. An intersection of which we are both a part and protagonist, one that cries for our response.
“Live consciously out of this reality of intersections. Experiment with it as a lens to look through the Eyes of Intersection. Use it as a hermeneutical tool. Filter everything through your Heart of Transcendence. Observe what insights, what inspirations, what realizations and revelations arise in you, for you and for the world. Use these twin lenses as functions for response and actions and see what happens. Maybe, you too will be surprised at what you discover. Maybe, awe and wonder await.”
Victoria University President & Vice-Chancellor Dr. Rhonda McEwen, who was born and raised in Trinidad, made the call to Jamadar that he was selected for the prestigious honour.
“Every now and then, the universe conspires to put us in a role to witness something special,” she said. “This is how I felt as I listened to the Victoria University honourary doctorate committee deliberate on a strong pool of candidates this year. I left that call even more impressed with the ways that he has translated his learning at Emmanuel College into his work to transform the criminal justice systems in the Caribbean and in Africa. Justice Ramadar is pushing longstanding biases and bringing needed changes to how systems have positioned issues affecting women and LGBT2S+ people. He exemplifies the values and skills that Emmanuel College graduates contribute to a better world.”
A graduate of the University of the West Indies Faculty of Law at Cave Hill in Barbados and the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad, Jamadar was admitted to the Bar in Trinidad & Tobago in 1984.
In 1997, he was appointed a Puisne Judge of the High Court and, in 2008, he was elevated to the twin-islands Court of Appeal. Four years ago, he was sworn in as a Judge of the CCJ, the apex court for several Caribbean states and an international court or original jurisdiction for CARICOM treaty rights.
Jamadar has written two books on democratic reform – ‘The Mechanics of Democracy’ and ‘Democracy & Constitutional Reform in Trinidad & Tobago’ – and authored various law-related publications.
The married father of two daughters is currently working with the United Nations Global Integrity Network in the development of a Global Social Media Protocol for judicial officers.
Jamadar is the second Caribbean national to receive an honourary doctorate from Victoria University since it started presenting the academic awards in 1918.
Fellow Trinidadian and former Caribbean Conference of Churches General Secretary Reverend Roy Gilbert Neehall, who was the pastor at Devon United Church in Alberta for a decade before his sudden death in 1996, was granted the honour in 1974.
In 1956, Canadian missionary Reverend Harold Swann received the recognition while serving as Principal of Naparima College in San Fernando.
