Dennis Daly: Man of uncommon humanity

By Howard Hamilton

The death of all great men and women is an occasion for both sadness and celebration: One, because the living have cause to miss their presence and noble example, the other, because the conscious living rejoice over the enduring benefit of their example. As former public defenders in Jamaica, we say without hesitation, that as regards Dennis Vernon Daly, QC, this could only seldom have been more true.

Dennis Daly's was a most remarkable life's journey. The course of it illustrates just how fickle or tainted by bias or ulterior motive contemporary judgement and opinion can be. For undaunted by the malice of the early 1960s exhibited by the political, social and media establishment and by his unyielding pursuit of right and principled refusal to countenance, let alone permit wrong to go without remedy, the real man emerged for all to see.

In the end, he put his critics and naysayers to flight. He showed just how ridiculous was their vain attempt to portray him as a dangerous pariah. He shamed all those who would demonise him. He showed why he was rightly lionised and revered by so many of the mass of our country's voiceless, relegated to the margins (forever it seems) by the hypocritical, 'high-born' and privileged. All this from a man of upper middle-class descent in a country mired in classism!

tireless warrior

As we reflect on the first 50 years of Jamaica's political Independence, we think about how far our country has come in its regard for the constitutionally protected fundamental rights and freedoms. Those are the rights and freedoms which we were mandated and privileged to protect and enforce. Dennis did much to delineate the path to the eventual creation of the Office of the Public Defender. In fact, along with others, he was an early 'public defender'.

From the very onset of his law practice until enfeebled by old age and illness, he was a tireless warrior from the trenches on up to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Along the way, he deployed his accomplished skills as a persuasive advocate, relentlessly labouring to animate and enliven the promise of that protection. He very early realised that the property in those rights was practically the sum of all the worthwhile possessions of the poor, a growing majority of whom are as yet not emancipated. In this respect, of course, he was not alone.

That he had a hand in many, if not all, of the landmark decisions of the court of the last 50 years interpreting and applying the fundamental rights provisions of the Constitution (notably those of accused persons and regarding callous State abuse) is well documented. So, too, regarding the founding of the Jamaica Council of Human Rights and the several legal aid clinics.

In sum, Dennis Daly was a man of uncommon humanity and unquestioned integrity who lived out his socialist convictions; a passionate advocate - irreverent, but never disrespectful. He practised what he preached, buttressed by an apt and engaging sense of humour. He was never tempted by the lure of lucre: content to defend all worthy causes pro bono, particularly on behalf of the importunate aggrieved.

mentor to many

He was mentor to a great many (one of us included) and inspired countless others, ordinary lawyers, judges and laypersons alike.

Indeed, Dennis Vernon Daly was made of the real right stuff: the stuff of which some say saints, drawn from a world of sinners, are made, for he always endeavoured to do the right thing. No wonder then that his earthling peers of the Jamaican Bar Association pronounced themselves "privileged ... (and) for magnificent and sufficient causes ... to raise (him) up to its highest place of honour". How the world turns.

Why is it then, we are left to wonder respectfully, that so often, so many worthy of high recognition nonetheless escape the attention of the Chancellery? We humbly acknowledge our own fault in failing to press home certain representations directed informally to the proper quarters and say nostra culpa. For in the case of our learned friend, there will always be time to bestow a National Honour, not below, we presume to recommend, the level of the Order of Jamaica. We couple with these sentiments a great stalwart who laboured beside him for many years, Ms Florizelle O'Connor, who, thankfully, remains active.

Howard Hamilton, QC, CD, and Earl Witter, QC, are former public defenders. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.

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