Life of Gibraltarian lawyer Albert Sanguinetti told in new book
by Gabriella PeraltaAbook on the life of Gibraltarian lawyer, the late Albert Sanguinetti, has been published and follows his career in Hong Kong.
Mr Sanguinetti’s dying wish was to have a book published on his life and follows his career as a lawyer and judge.
Author Stuart Wolfendale knew Mr Sanguinetti in life and was chosen to write the book, which is titled: ‘More When I Know You Better: The Life of Albert Sanguinetti, 1923–2009’.
Mr Wolfendale is a writer and editor based in Hong Kong, and was commissioned by the executors of Albert’s estate. “Albert had put in his will that he would like a history of him, a biography of him written,” he said.
Mr Wolfendale had met Mr Sanguinetti shortly before he died.
“I was quite inspired to be part of that because I lived in Hong Kong many years and, although I hadn’t met Albert, I knew many people who had and his reputation went before him as a legal fighter and a character,” he said.
“I was very interested to do the job.”
Mr Wolfendale said Mr Sanguinetti was a man of firm intentions and knew he wanted a book detailing his life to be published.
“It is perhaps a bit unusual and out of the ordinary, but
that was Albert and I’m very glad to say that I was able to carry it out,” he said.
Mr Sanguinetti had initially asked his friend and fellow lawyer Brian McKinley to
embark on this project and had conducted some research. Some time later Mr Wolfendale picked up the project and completed the book. Mr Wolfendale laughed as he remembered the most famous anecdote of Mr Sanguinetti.
“His very famous [story] when he was very frustrated in front of the High Court in Hong Kong, the case was not going his way and he thought the judges were not being fair or not following the line of thinking they should,” Mr Wolfendale said.
“Suddenly he knocked a book off the table in the courtroom and went down on his hands and knees and disappeared under the table, he was down there a very long time and the judge and the bench looked down and said ‘Mr Sanguinetti what are you doing?’”
“His head popped up from under the table and he said: ‘Looking for justice, My Lord.’”
“It became so famous in Hong Kong, people who had no idea who Albert Sanguinetti really was and knew nothing about the law would tell it to each other anyway because it was so funny,” Mr Wolfendale said. He added that Mr Sanguinetti represented serious cases such as the 1967 Red Guard riots in Hong Kong.
He described how Mr Sanguinetti would monitor these cases for shortcomings and injustices on behalf of Amnesty International.
“Some of the accounts that
he gives of what went on were very harrowing and very moving,” Mr Wolfendale said. He said Mr Sanguinetti was courageous in his reports to Amnesty and called these an example of his good character. “He was a man of steadfast principle and tenacious,” Mr Wolfendale said.
“He was a man with a tremendous and wicked dry sense of humour and, above all, flamboyant.”
Mr Wolfendale joked that people knew when Mr Sanguinetti would enter a room, and called him a “child of the empire”.
Born in Gibraltar, Mr Sanguinetti trained in London and served in Kenya, before moving to Hong Kong for over 30 years as a lawyer, Magistrate and District Court Judge.
“Although he was a child of the empire he was vigorous in his criticism of colonialism,” Mr Wolfendale said.
He said Mr Sanguinetti was glad to see colonialism end in Hong Kong.
Mr Wolfendale also touches on various historical events, including the Mau Mau revolution in Kenya. The book is available online. Mr Wolfendale has been a columnist for newspapers such as the South China Morning Post, Eastern Express, and Hong Kong Standard, as well as a contributor to regional, British, and North American publications.
He had a wide variety of work experience before he became a writer, including being an administrative officer in both the United Kingdom Home Civil Service and the British Hong Kong Government.
He is also the author of Imperial to International: A History of St John’s Cathedral.