Scholarship to honour slain lawyer

Law firm Murray & Tucker has established a scholarship in honour of late attorney-at-law Sashakay Fairclough, who was murdered in Ocho Rios last September.

Head of the law firm, Dr Leon HoSang, said it was only fitting to honour Fairclough as the company marks its 100th anniversary.

Fairclough was shot and killed in Ocho Rios on September 13, 2019, as she drove home. Her mother, who was in the vehicle with her, was also shot but survived the attack.

The police are yet to make an arrest in the case.

HoSang told The Gleaner that the scholarship will be funded using all the proceeds from his latest book, The Working Class Under the IMF – the Jamaican Experience, which was published recently.

Law students will be eligible for the scholarship, which is tenable at the University of Technology (UTech). The recipient will have to qualify on a needs basis.

“... If they are wasters and poor, we’re not going to be able to help them. They must be committed to their course of study,” HoSang said.

A scholarship committee of UTech will have oversight over the selection process. He is also appealing for support from UTech alumni and attorneys-at-law.

The book is available at Kingston Bookshop, UTech Bookshop, Sangster’s Book Stores, and The University of the West Indies Bookshop.

The Working Class Under the IMF – the Jamaican Experience explores the policies adopted by Jamaican governments between 1977 and 1994, which HoSang described as one of the most turbulent periods in Jamaica’s political and economic history.

The book recalls the ideological clashes between centrists and leftists and the period that gave birth to the Workers Party of Jamaica (WPJ).

“But more than that and beyond, the book explores reasons why there was not the level of deep, widespread, serious social upheaval which took place in some of the other countries where IMF and World Bank policies, structural adjustment policies, were introduced.

For me, that’s the question that the book seeks to answer,” he said.