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QUEEN’S COUNSEL and former attorney general of Guyana Sir Fenton Ramsahoye has died.

Ramsahoye passed away today in Barbados of natural causes. He was 89 years old.

In 1961 Ramsahoye was elected a Member of Parliament of Guyana and remained in Parliament until 1973 under the Cheddi Jaggan-led People’s Progress Party. Ramsahoye was Attorney General of Guyana from 1961 to 1964 and a member of Board of Governors of University of Guyana from 1962 to 1964.

He also made several appearances before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the Caribbean.

The sud­den pass­ing of Sir Fen­ton Ram­sa­hoye, QC, who pi­o­neered con­sti­tu­tion­al de­vel­op­ments in the Caribbean through le­gal vic­to­ries at the Privy Coun­cil, has sent shock waves through­out the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty in the re­gion.

Guyana-born Ram­sa­hoye, 89, died at Queen’s Eliz­a­beth Hos­pi­tal in Bar­ba­dos.

Pamela El­der, SC, who was un­aware of Ram­sa­hoye’s pass­ing, was lost for words. Is­rael Khan, SC, said Ram­sa­hoye, the first prin­ci­pal of the Hugh Wood­ing Law School, be­lieved in Caribbean in­te­gra­tion and “did a lot for the young lawyers.”

Al­so ex­press­ing deep sor­row at Ram­sa­hoye’s pass­ing were for­mer Guyana House Speak­er Ralph Ramkar­ran and An­tigua Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne.

Sir Fenton Ramsahoye QC, SC (20 May 1929 – 27 December 201 was a Guyanese lawyer and politician who served for over twenty years in Antigua and Barbuda.

Ramsahoye studied at London University where he was awarded B.A. in 1949 and LL.B., LLM in 1953 and 1956. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn on 10 February 1953 and was awarded Ph.D. in Comparative Land Law from London School of Economics and Political Science in 1959.[1]

Ramsahoye was at the forefront of the independence movement. In 1961 he was elected a Member of Parliament of Guyana and remained in parliament until 1973.[2][dead link] He was Attorney General of Guyana from 1961 to 1964 and a member of Board of Governors of University of Guyana from 1962 to 1964. As of 2006, he holds the record for making the most appearances before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the Caribbean.[2] Ramsahoye was appointed Senior Counsel in Guyana in 1971. From 1972 to 1975 he was Deputy Director of Legal Education for the Council of Legal Education in the West Indies and head of Hugh Wooding Law School as a professor.[1]

Ramsahoye was a Queen's Counsel and a member of the bars of England and Wales, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, the Territories of the Eastern Caribbean including Montserrat, and the British Virgin Islands.[1]

Ramsahoye was knighted in 2006 by Governor General Sir James Carlisle during a ceremony at Government House in Antigua.[2]

Ramsahoye married Phyllis Gwendolyn Lutz, the daughter of Richard Benjamin Lutz of South Australia. [3].

He died in Barbados on 27 December 2018 at the age of 89.[4]