President Anthony Carmona believes principles the late special prosecutor Dana Seetahal stood for will live on through the people whose lives she has impacted positively.
He said the perpetrators who murdered her on May 4 last year in Woodbrook, ended her life on earth that day but her courage and spirit would live on through those who have the conviction to do right in their daily lives.
Speaking at Wednesday’s launch of her book, titled Unbreakable, a collection of her most insightful columns over the past two-and-a-half decades at Westmall, Westmoorings, the President said a career in the public service could be more challenging than many would believe.
He said working with Seetahal and Chief Justice Ivor Archie earlier in their career as prosecutor in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions thought him that.
“I see judges all around us, judges who I have the deepest respect for because sometimes boulders come your way but stand strong because you represent the bulwark of our democracy.
“Chief Justice, one common thing that you and I and Dana had is we were all prosecutors and our lives were also threatened. We had hits on us. We are still here and that is why we feel the way we feel,” Carmona said.
He turned to Seetahal’s sister, Susan Francois, director of the Financial Intelligence Unit, and said: “Susan, sometimes I see you and do not know what to tell you. I just don’t know. I see her friends and I don’t know what to say to them but we have to soldier on. We have to persevere.”
As prosecutors, said the President, they all were resolute in the pursuit of justice but their mandate was not to be persecutors but rather ministers of justice which they learned together in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
Carmona recalled that in that jurisdiction, Seetahal and the team ensured that due process, the rule of law, natural justice were watchwords that were not only practised but lived.
He added: “Dana was the consummate prosecutor. She had that drive, that grit, that determination to get the job done. And, then she began to write and that was another journey and one idiosyncratic feature was her open, frank, comprehensive dialogue with every citizen of T&T.
“When something was illegal, she would outline how it was illegal, not like now. When something was unconstitutional she would map out how it was unconstitutional.
“She was not a professional that engaged in blasé generalisation to feed ignorance because Dana Seetahal was not about spreading ignorance. She was a person of light, not darkness,” said Carmona.