President Faure receives retired judge Bernardin Renaud |13 July 2019
President Faure welcomes Justice Renaud to State House
Justice Bernardin Renaud was received at State House yesterday by President Danny Faure following his retirement as Justice of the Seychelles Court of Appeal in May this year.
In a quick chat with the media Justice Renaud said that “by tradition, President Faure invites all government retirees to State House and I am among the ones retiring now. We talked about my journey in the public service and I did not realise that I am the person with the longest time in the public service in Seychelles. I shared with him my ideas about the public service for the future as well as for the Judiciary”.
Asked about the highlights of his career, Justice Renaud said he had many “firsts” in his career.
“I started in the audit sector then moved on in the labour administration, accounts and even went abroad for training as an accountant. I was appointed the first labour commissioner and the first labour inspector. After that period, I started with law and organised the election for the Constitution. I organised two referendums elections and organised the Presidential and Parliamentary elections. I also developed the electoral system in Seychelles and this system was shared with other countries by the Commonwealth. The two milestones in my career are definitely when I was the labour commissioner and when I was the chairperson of the Constitutional Commission where we had to organise the transition from a one party state to multiparty state in a peaceful manner. In 2004, I was the first Seychellois to be appointed Judge in the Supreme Court and after that I was invited to serve on the Court of Appeal. While on the Supreme Court, I also served on the Constitutional Court. There were some interesting cases where I had to judge upon. And now I have been appointed to serve as chairman of the Human Rights Commission.
When will Justice Renaud finally retire? “My retirement is like this. Everyday at 4pm I retire and I start again at 8am the following day. I will keep doing the same for the next appointment or else I will be bored.”
To recall Judge Renaud is one of the longest serving public officers. He joined the civil service in 1965 and later served as Labour Commissioner from 1979 to 1985. He played a key role in the transition of Seychelles from a One Party State to a pluralistic system when he chaired the meetings of Constitutional Commission that laid out the foundations for the Constitution of the Third Republic. He was the director of Elections for the Referendum that approved the Constitution, as well as for the first Presidential and National Assembly elections in 1993.
Judge Renaud was also sworn in as the first Ombudsman of the Republic of Seychelles in November 1993. He was elevated as Judge of the Supreme Court in January 2004 and then served as Justice of the Seychelles Court of Appeal from May 2017 until his retirement in May this year.