A former Supreme Court judge who also played a leading role in settling some of the country’s industrial disputes has died aged 88.
Justice Henry Moe passed away peacefully at his home in Fitches Creek on Saturday morning.
The Barbados-born lawyer moved to his adopted homeland of Antigua in 1986, serving as President of the Industrial Court until 1994.
Born in 1935, Moe attended Harrison College in Barbados, later earning a scholarship to attend prestigious Durham University where he read classics – ancient Greek and Latin – graduating in 1958.
Teaching was his first love and he went on to head the classics departments at Cornwall College, a prominent boys’ school in Jamaica, along with two schools in the UK – Banbury Secondary Modern in Oxfordshire and Tolworth Girls’ School in Surrey.
He qualified as a lawyer in London and was called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1970, before returning to Barbados where he practiced while also lecturing at the island’s community college.
After his initial eight-year stint in Antigua at the helm of the Industrial Court, Justice Moe went to Belize where he served on the Supreme Court bench.
He returned to Antigua in 1998, serving as a High Court judge for the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court in various jurisdictions, including Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, the British Virgin Islands, and Nevis.
Justice Moe also presided over various commissions of inquiry in both Antigua and Tortola.
He would have turned 89 on April 18.
A spokesperson for the family said, “Justice Moe had a love for sports such as boxing and tennis, but most of all he had a great passion for cricket and was a member of the Antigua and Barbuda Cricket Association.”
His death comes amid a succession of losses of leading legal luminaries from the region.
Justice Desiree Bernard, Guyana’s first female High Court judge, died on March 28 followed by Justice Michael de la Bastide, former Chief Justice of Trinidad and Tobago, on March 30.