David Sgayias, Q.C. - An Appreciation

• Author: W. Ian Binnie
• Pages: 13-15

David

Sgfly/fls,

Q.C.

—

An

Appreciation

In

an era

when public service

is

valued less than

it

ought

to be,

David

Sgayias,

Q.C. stood

out as

representing

the

great traditions both

of the

Bar

and of the law

officers

of the

Crown. This volume

is a

wonderful

tribute

to a

thoughtful

and

eloquent

advocate

who was

felled

by a

heart

attack

in

August

of

last year.

He was

only

fifty-two

years old.

David

was a

gentle giant

of a

man, scrupulously

fair

in his

work,

discreetly droll

in

private, dispassionate, scholarly

and

courteously def-

erential

to

those

he

met, except when confronting what

he

took

to be an

unjustified

attack

on Her

Majesty's

interests, when

his

face

would flush,

his

voice would drop

an

octave

or

two,

and his

oversize

frame

would

gently

rock with indignation.

We

were friends

for

over twenty years,

and

worked

on

many

trials

and

appeals together.

David

would generally provide

the

scholarship

logic

and

organization, leaving

it to me to try to

"sex

up" our

presenta-

tion with

a

little purple prose.

It was not

until

I

joined

the

Supreme

Court

in

1998

that

I

realized

the

purple prose

was

entirely superfluous,

if

not

actually

detrimental

to our

cause. Judges held

the

same

high

opin-

ion of

David's compelling

advocacy

as did

members

of the

Bar. When

David

died, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin sent

a

letter

of

personal

tribute

to the

Department

of

Justice acknowledging

the

great loss

his

death

had

occasioned

to the

Supreme Court Bar,

a

most unusual ges-

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