The rapidly-growing environmental protection
advocacy group Save The Bays has announced the appointment of Fred Smith, QC,
as chairman.
Smith,
managing partner of the Freeport office of Callenders, an award-winning law
firm established more than 100 years ago, is an outspoken advocate for human
rights, the environment and civil justice. His current practice is devoted
almost entirely to human rights, constitutional and administrative law,
regulatory litigation relating to the Hawksbill Creek Agreements and Save The
Bays-supported litigation.
President of the
Grand Bahama Human Rights Association which he helped found 25 years ago, Mr.
Smith is a former president of the Freeport Law Society. A Harvard Law School
certified Arbitrator and Mediator, he has twice been called on by the Bahamas
Bar Association to chair key committees, including the Bar Association’s
Constitutional Law section and its Human Rights Committee.
“We are extremely
honoured that Fred Smith has accepted the position of Chairman of Save The
Bays,” said CEO Lindsey McCoy. “Fred’s passion for those causes he believes in
is matched only by his ability to fight for them, both through the court of
public opinion and through the legal system which he holds in the highest
esteem. Seeking justice, redress or regulatory enforcement, he is committed to
ensuring that a new day dawns in protecting our environment against the ravages
of unregulated development, oil pollution or other influences while stressing
the benefits of a blue and a green economy. Those values mirror ours in every
way and we could not ask for a stronger, more compassionate leader.”
Mr. Smith succeeds
William F. Hunter, Jr. who served as founding chairman since its launch in April
2013. In the 18 months under his guidance, Save The Bays has grown
exponentially, breaking all records for a non-profit in social media with
17,200 Facebook friends and more than 6,000 signatures on a petition (www.savethebays.bs) calling for freedom of information and an
environmental protection act among other tenets.
Born a British
subject in Haiti in 1956, Mr. Smith became a Bahamian citizen in 1973 upon the
country’s independence. As child, he along with his parents divided their time
between Haiti and The Bahamas and it may have been that experience that made
him sensitive to what he later saw as abuse of early immigrants from Haiti at
the hands of those in authority. A strong supporter of the law being
administered justly and with fairness, he took a petition alleging breaches of
human rights against the general Haitian population to Washington, DC, where he
was granted an appearance before the Human Rights Commission of the
Organization of American States in Washington in the mid 1980’s. It was then he
formed the Grand Bahama Human Rights Association.
Mr. Smith, who
was schooled and studied law in England, has been admitted to practice at the
Bar of England, Wales and The Bahamas and has been in active private practice
since July 1977. In 2009, he was admitted to the Inner Bar of The Bahamas and
appointed Her Majesty’s Queen’s Counsel. He has practiced before the lower
civil and criminal courts, administrative boards, various tribunals and at the
bars of the Supreme Court, The Court of Appeal and the Privy Council in London,
England and has appeared in the courts of and provided expert testimony
regarding matters of law in The Bahamas in cases conducted in England, the USA
and Canada.
