THE DEATH OF HARVEY TYNES A BLOW FOR JUSTICE

File photo from a presentation of a plaque by the Acklins Islanders Association to Harvey Tynes by Fred Mitchell

The MPs all knew something had gone drastically wrong on Wednesday 23 July 2025 when Iram Lewis MP was about to speak and he left the chamber instead and hurried down the stairs. Later it turned out that his father-in-law Harvey Tynes KC with whom he and family members had travelled to Nassau that morning was found unresponsive at Doctors Hospital.  He could not be revived. His daughter, the former senator Tanisha Tynes Cambridge was with him at the time. They had just left his beloved Odle Corner of East Street where he grew up hunting for guineps.

Such is the fragility of life.

The tributes started to flow.

Mr. Tynes was a son of Acklins.  He was part of the famous family group of Hannas, Heasties and Tyneses.  He was an advocate extraordinaire, in its truest sense.  He could hold on to an idea and not let it go.  If you got him for your lawyer, you knew you were on the winning side even if the court disagreed with his arguments.

He was also a pioneer in the sense that he and his wife and four daughters repaired to Freeport, the second city when it was in its relative infancy and he set up household and a generous and ample living there.

He was a good and outstanding churchman. He was a pillar first of Christ the King and then of the newly built Ascension.

Fred Mitchell, Chair of the PLP, spoke of the long relationship they had together in the cause of justice, starting out with lectures on the constitution in Freeport in 1988 at the Christ the King Hall in the face of resistance from the Grand Bahama Port Authority.  They distributed 1200 copies of the constitution during that week of lectures.

When the story of Grand Bahama and The Bahamas is properly told, we think that Harvey Tynes should factor in it prominently. He should go down in the book as a great Bahamian, a man who loved his country, cared for his family and fought for peace, justice and equity.

May he rest in peace.  We have lost a champion.

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