St. Augustine Legal Affairs (STALA) Issue 2 | Page 22

TRIBUTE TO
DR ARIF BULKAN

TRIBUTE TO
MR JOHN JEREMIE SC

By Chelsea Stewart

By Shivash Maraj

I did not have a first impression of Mr. Bulkan but I did
in fact have a lasting impression. I understood that he
was my Human Rights Law lecturer and like all my other
lecturers, he deserved the respect of his profession. This
was my general approach until time began to slowly dwindle by and rather than cope and pace myself, the fact that
there was not a text book for me to become cozy with,
my approach to Human Rights Law and Mr. Bulkan, became four hours a week of still respect, warped in fear
and a consistent uneasiness. So, in other words, yes, I was
intimidated and daunted by Mr. Bulkan.

At the end of three years at the University of the West
Indies, I can safely say that it has indeed been a privilege
to be taught by Mr. Jeremie in four law courses (Law of
Torts 2, Company Law, Corporate Management and Corporate Finance). From his stories about his legal practice to his four hour sessions on Corporate Finance, Mr.
Jeremie successfully inspired us to become what we had
all set out to become when we applied to the University to study law: Successful Lawyers. His speeches on
the importance of working hard and reading to get a degree knew no end. He would always try to give us the
worksheets at the start of the term with the comforting
words of “progress at your own pace”, however as a result of this everyone knew that by the time the semester
neared its end, there would be absolutely no excuse for
not knowing at least enough to pass. This leads to another famous line that Mr. Jeremie always uses, “…you have
to try very hard to fail one of my courses.” During the
course of the last year, Mr. Jeremie occupied the office
that was situated next to the reading room, as the walls
of the faculty are very thin Mr. Jeremie inadvertently
became one of the few or maybe even the only lecturer
who knew the thoughts of the students. He would often
come to class and refer to these voiced opinions to the
amusement of the majority of the class, and of course
the dismay to those whose private conversation had just
been divulged. Having Mr. Jeremie as a Lecturer ensures
that one walks away from every class learning something
new or having a troublesome topic clarified. Although his
attempt to get us to read an entire case may have been
unsuccessful for the most part, Mr Jeremie has and will
continue to motivate the Law students at the University
of the West Indies, and try to the best of his ability (I’m
sure) to ensure that we as law students don’t enter the
legal world completely clueless. This daunting task added
to the various administrative problems of the faculty and
Mr. Jeremie’s survival of it all serves as proof that he is
indeed an experienced and effective lecturer, and maybe
one day he would be rewarded by having a class in which
all of the students read an entire case.

I recall our very first midterm assignment, not contributing to our final percentage but I presume it was for the
purpose of gaging our general levels of understanding
thus far within the course. Well, it was a colossal disaster.
I was beginning to think that I was a little slow and I know
Mr. Bulkan thought it too. But I am now not ashamed to
say that I not only failed the assignment, it was not even
marked. YES! It was that bad and I completely missed the
mark. But, God never gives you something you cannot
handle and if this doesn’t fit in your garden, you can also
rely on the saying that ‘everything happens for a reason’;
because the result of the assignment was the beginning
of a beautiful relationship between Commonwealth Caribbean Human Rights Law and me
It was not only the ungraded paper that fuelled this penchant for Human Rights Law, but it was also the Death
Penalty Forum held at the N