Surely this attorney jests

Jun 22, 2010 Letters

---

Dear Editor,
Some of the assertions in Mr. Anil Nandalall’s letter captioned, “The Government as a matter of Law cannot prosecute, convict and sentence human trafficking offenders”, fairly reeks of hypocrisy of the worse order. Mr. Nandalall postulates from a pedestal of rank hypocrisy that quote, “…Like the United States of America, ours is a legal system which recognises the constitution as the supreme law of the land. Again, like the United States, this constitution is predicated upon and embraces the concept of separation of powers…”
Are you kidding me! These assertions would not be challengeable if made by an attorney that consistently and without bias defended those principles. But coming from an MP in a regime in which the Chief Executive routinely and publicly pronounce people guilty before they have had a trial, where Ministers of the Government describe torture as roughing up, and facetiously explain such allegations away with the retort that citizens are more interested in material things than a basic principle of human rights, it is simply astounding.
Mr. Nandalall need to disabuse himself from the notion that everyone in and of this nation subscribe to the same notion he apparently does, to wit, that the principles he preeningly waxes about are selectively important and relevant in the administration of justice in Guyana.
Mr. Nandlall beats on his chest and lectures the US that quote, “…In this legal matrix, I must point out that the constitution guarantees to every citizen of this country the presumption of innocence as a fundamental right.
Therefore, the prosecution is required to produce cogent and compelling evidence of guilt in every case in order to rebut this presumption.
Whether the case is proved or not is a question of law exclusively for the trial magistrate or judge to determine…”
Surely this MP jests. Surely this MP cannot seriously feel he can make these kinds of enunciations without any concern that his historical adherence and commitment to the very principles he now wraps around himself will be questioned?
How can any attorney be concerned about due process for people and remain silent while hundreds were being permanently deprived of these very rights?
What kind of a nation have we become, that attorneys and MPs can exhibit this level of hypocrisy without fear of being censored by their peers?
What kind of a society have we become that those who are supposed to be guardians and defenders of the legal rights and presumptions to which every citizen is supposed to be entitled, can demonstrate the kind of awful double standard and bias exemplified by the utterances of Mr. Nandlall?
I carry no water for the United States of America, and am one of its most fierce critics. However, Mr. Nandalall’s lecturing the United States about due process and the rights of the individual in a legal sense has to be one of the greatest examples of hypocrisy in modern times. I wish to draw Mr. Nandalall’s attention to “The basic Principles on the role of Lawyers, Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Havana, 27 August to 7 September 1990, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.144/28/Rev.1 at 118 (1990)”, and query why his consciousness on due process and the presumption of innocence is exhibited so selectively? I wish to inform him that I am simply astounded that someone so concerned with the basic principles of the legal right of the individual could have been so selectively mute while the UN recognition that quote, “…the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrines the principles of equality before the law, the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, and all the guarantees necessary for the defence of everyone charged with a penal offence…”, was being horribly violated in Guyana, and in public space.
When an individual stands in front of a court in the US, and a jury of his peers pronounces him or her innocent, the Governmental might of the US cannot nullify that universally acceptable final verdict. If the mutilated bodies of people some claim are criminal suspects are being discovered daily in numbers that are proportionally astounding, virtually every Law Maker, as well as the Chief Executive would be hastening to publicly condemn those suspected of being behind it, and demanding rigorous investigation to bring them to justice. No attorney in the United States of America, in these modern times, would consider it decent or appropriate to justify lynching or any other kinds of extra-judicial killings. And if they did and subsequently engage in the kind of chest thumping assertions of Mr. nandlall, they would become the laughing stock of their profession, as well as those involved in covering and reporting on the affairs of the nation.
Sadly Guyana has become one of those states where the people who are supposed to be leading by example are the most inconsistent adherents to the very values and principles they like to lecture others about.
Robin Williams

---

---