Dr. Hassan Awada was born in Machghara in 1923, at a time when the town combined agriculture, leather tanning, and a diverse educational life. His early schooling reflected that environment: he moved from a religious school where he memorised the Quran, to a Catholic school where he encountered the Gospel, and then to a public school with a secular character.
After earning the certificat in 1939, Awada chose not to enter the tanning trade followed by many of his contemporaries. He travelled to Beirut to continue his education, later returned to Machghara as a teacher, and then resumed secondary studies independently before entering the Jesuit law school while working to support himself.
His opposition to the French Mandate led to his expulsion from the university, although Dr. Fouad Ephrem Boustany later helped secure his return. Awada continued his studies in Paris, earned a doctorate in law in 1949, returned to Lebanon, and was appointed to the judiciary in 1951 while also teaching at university level.
In 1959, during President Fouad Chehab’s term, he became the first head of Lebanon’s Financial Inspection. His name became associated with professional competence and independence from pressure. He preferred judicial, oversight, and academic work to political office and declined opportunities to become a member of parliament or a minister.
Awada’s journey reflects an era when education required a demanding passage from the town to Beirut and then to European universities. It is also part of Machghara’s social history: a story of a plural educational environment whose values of openness, work, and law were carried by one of its sons into the institutions of the Lebanese state.
