There is a lot wrong in society

May 17, 2009 Features / Columnists, My Column

Sometimes as I go about my ordinary daily life there are things that bother me, and I wonder whether there are rules for one set of people and another for the ordinary people. I often hear many people say that poor people can never get justice simply because they do not have money.
Take the case of poor people whose relatives die in vehicular accidents. The courts would hand down a ruling either fining the culprit driver or send him to jail for a token period. I know that the judges and magistrates would say that their hands are tied and that they can only impose sentences up to a limit.

However, the other day I happened to be looking at a television programme and I saw a woman who made some significant changes in the manner in which the courts can deal with errant drivers who claim lives.
There was this drunk driver who came up the wrong way on the road and crashed into a vehicle transporting some people. There was a death and the woman led a campaign to change the way the courts should look at certain drivers. She won. The errant driver got a 20-year jail sentence for vehicular manslaughter. This woman is seeking the death penalty for certain motorists.

In Guyana, the victims’ relatives accept what the courts dictate and leave it at that. They do not seek private criminal action that would help them to get adequate compensation for their pain.
Similarly, there is a convention that when a public servant or one who works in a public capacity commits a crime that person is interdicted from duty. It happened just the other day with the Supreme Court Registrar.
Lo and behold, another rule was applied in the case of the man accused of attempted rape in Linden. He was responsible for the hosting of the beauty pageant on the occasion of Linden Town Week. The victim quit the pageant and the accused was remanded but as is his right, he applied to the High Court for bail and succeeded.

One would have expected that his employers would have interdicted him from duty. In fact, I thought that was what happened until I got a call from Linden asking me whether I knew what was happening with the case.
I asked whether the individual was still remanded and got the news that he had gone to the High Court. I then asked whether he was still on the job and got a shock. Not only was this man working, but he was also involved in the very pageant that landed him in trouble.

This was nothing but blatant disregard for decency and for the people of Linden. And I was shocked because Linden as a depressed community expects that the rule of law would see it treated like any other community in the country. It was Linden that saw discrimination in the fact that it was being denied the kind of electricity it thought it deserved.
It was also Linden that was harsh on the people who were accused of raping some women in the community. So here we have another and instead of interdicting him, the regional authorities allowed him to continue as though nothing has happened.

Someone once said that a people get the government they deserve. I say that Linden gets the kind of rulers they deserve without stopping to think that whatever precedent they set will come back to haunt them.
Everywhere else the situation of interdicting people accused of a crime is practiced, unless there is some political intervention. Just the other day some policemen were accused of demanding money with menace and placed before the courts. They have been interdicted. There were the Customs officers who have been accused of fraud. They too have been interdicted. And I am only talking about recent cases. Linden should be no different.

To compound the matter, the very people who happen to be affected are silent. No one has raised a voice in protest and surely, no one has appealed to anyone in authority to question the state of affairs.
There is another issue that bothers me and it had to do with the courts. On Friday I learnt that a man arrested for carjacking has been in the courts for the same offence, not once but three times. How could this be?

Surely the courts should have recognized that they have a right to protect the society. If a man is a repeat offender surely this would be noticed and the courts, which have a duty to protect the society should do so.
This suspected carjacker is heading to the courts once more and I await the outcome. Perhaps he will be granted bail again to continue where he left off.