EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW

Dec 10, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

The people of Guyana will in the New Year get an opportunity to decide whether they desire to see the PPP remain in office or whether a change is necessary. This will happen whenever elections are held.
However, before we meet that stage there are important issues that need to be addressed, regardless of who is likely to win the elections. These issues are independent of political change. Irrespective of who wields political power, there are principles that need to be addressed if Guyana is to be described as a constitutional democracy.
Elections alone do not make a nation a constitutional democracy. One of the other important features of a constitutional democracy is equality before the law.
For equality before the law to exist, the independence of important offices such as the Auditor General and the Director of Public Prosecutions must be preserved and protected. It is no longer just a case that these offices be designated as independent constitutional offices. It is necessary that these offices be free from dependence on the Executive and Legislative arms of the State so that no pressure can be brought to bear on them.
One of the suggestions made by the opposition parties is for these offices to be granted one-off subventions rather than having to await regular releases by the Ministry of Finance. The latter, it is argued, can ration these releases as a means of exerting pressure and influence. In other words, financial dependence on the Executive, for example, can be used to undermine the operational independence of these offices.
Operational independence of certain offices is needed if equality before the law, an important element of constitutional democracy, is to be maintained.
There is supposed to be equality of all citizens before and under the law. But the ordinary man has the perception that there are two sets of laws in Guyana.  And it is necessary that the prosecuting authorities disabuse any perceptions or notion that the public may harbour about unequal treatment before the law.
The publisher of this newspaper was hauled before the Courts for the alleged use of threatening language. Other individuals have been hauled before the courts for threatening language. Yet we are told that under the common law there is no such offence as threatening language.
How is it that charges could have been proffered against the publisher of this newspaper for threatening language and the allegations made by the publisher of this newspaper against the Attorney General have not yet reached the stage of prosecution?
In order to establish equality before the law, it is necessary that those entrusted with prosecution, namely the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Guyana Police Force be independent of any form of political pressures and seen to be acting free of any semblance of political favouritism. How can this be done? How can the public be assured that equality before the law is alive and healthy in Guyana?
One way in which this can be done is for the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Police to indicate the status of the investigation into the allegations made by the publisher of Kaieteur News against the Attorney General. It is for the DPP to demand the file on this matter, whether complete or incomplete, and to suggest the appropriate investigative steps, if these are not already taken by the police. It is for the police to indicate what action is being taken.
A second way to establish equality before the law is to do like what was done in the case of the allegations made against the now deceased former Commissioner of Police, Henry Greene. Because he was the head of the agency that was investigating him on charges of sexual assault, the government called in foreign investigators from Caricom. The government wanted to demonstrate that there were no sacred cows under the laws of Guyana.
The Attorney General of Guyana is the political head of the justice system in Guyana. It is therefore necessary that in the present instance, and especially given the time that the police are taking to conclude the investigation into the allegations made against the Attorney General, that an independent investigating team be cobbled together to take over these investigations. This would be a good way of indicating to the public that equality before the law is not a dead concept in Guyana.
But one cannot expect the government to do this. This action cannot be a political action, because the President has already expressed his opinion on what the Attorney General said. It is for the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions to undertake an independent probe of the allegations. The DPP has the power to order such a probe. And so too does the Commissioner of Police. Remember Henry Greene?

---

---