Bermuda Day Grand Marshal 2018 – What We Share: Honouring Contributions to the Legal Community from Jamaican-Born Justice Norma Wade Miller
Bermuda’s connection to the Caribbean is one of the most important and enduring, and Bermuda has found herself lucky over the years to have outstanding members of the community from our Caribbean neighbours. One-such individual is Jamaican-born Justice Norma Wade Miller, O.B.E., J.P., who has made important contributions to the local and international legal communities and the wider Bermudian community as well. She has served as an example of both independence and empathy on the Bermudian bench for more than 30 years.
Norma Wade Miller has made an exceptional contribution to the judicial life of Bermuda, over 25 years and a distinguished period of service as a judge in the Supreme Court, recently as Senior Puisne Judge before retirement. Before that, from 1985-1991, she was Registrar of the Supreme Court. She has been a role model in Bermuda, as the first woman to be appointed as a permanent magistrate; and also the first woman Supreme Court justice in Bermuda. She was also Bermuda’s first female Acting Chief Justice.
Mrs. Wade-Miller led the development of Bermuda’s new Integrated Family Court. She is a Fellow of the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute and a member of the International Hague Network of Judges. She has also been active in other Commonwealth legal institutions, notably as President from 2009-2012 of the Commonwealth Magistrates and Judges Association and is now Honorary Life Vice President.
Within Bermuda, she has taken on a range of reforming tasks: as Chair of the Judicial Task Force on Alternatives to Incarceration, as a member of the Law Reform Committee, Chair of the Justice System Review Team and Chair of the Law Reform Sub-Committee on Family Law Reform. She was one of the founders of Project 100, which promotes mental health awareness and raises funds to combat mental disabilities. She also set up a programme [Spelldown Bermuda] designed to promote spelling in schools, based on a programme operating in Jamaica.
Note: Unfortunately, Mrs. Wade-Miller was off-island and was unable to participate in the Bermuda Day Parade.
