The stance taken by the DPP in the Henry Greene case is sound

Feb 26, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I stand with the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) with her position on the Henry Greene rape allegation. Like her, I also believe that a lot of the issues which Mr. Greene sought to challenge, and which he claims are sufficient to bar the Acting Police Commission et al from prosecuting a race case against him, should be determined by the court.
Mr. Greene seems to be preoccupied with this thinking that the complainant might be an unreliable person and therefore the court should not entertain her case.
According to him, the woman is not credible since she has committed acts of extortion in the past and therefore, her words cannot be trusted nor acted upon. In fact he is saying that the justice system should not be available to his accuser because, according to him, she has committed some crime in the past.
The problem with this position is that Mr. Greene seems to be advancing a position which says; “once a criminal always a criminal”, and even more dangerous is his suggestion that a criminal should have no legal recourse, even if he/she might be the victim of a vicious criminal attack.
I believe it is this kind of rearward thinking, on the part of Henry Greene, that might be responsible for the spiraling and out of control crime situation which has engulfed this country during his tenure as top cop.
Simply put, it is that ‘Henry Greene philosophy’ which promotes that folly theory which says; ‘blame all the acts of crime on the known suspects, or those who might have had prior brushes with the law’.
This retarded and unintelligent idea, I believe, continues to pave the way for other vicious criminals to go undetected, or unnoticed. We would have seen this thinking exposed during the infamous crime spree, where virtually all crimes were blamed on the ‘Fine Mans’, the ‘Shawn Browns’, and the like, all the while paving the way for other criminals and their accomplices to make good their escape and succeed in shielding themselves, while enticing petty criminals to gain ‘criminal celebrity status’. Others also took the opportunity to actively begin their criminal careers.
Mr. Greene, and I daresay the government he represents, seems to have adopted a position that goes against basic human rights and which goes contrary to basic principles of constitutions of modern day  societies.
To even suggest that someone must be debarred from the court because that person might have committed a wrong in the past is out of sync with progressive thinking.
I read Mr. Henry Greene’s position as to why he believes that allegations of rape against him should not be prosecuted in the court, as per the DPP’s advice, and conclude that to grant his request may very well result in a situation where a citizen’s right to legal recourse might be seriously impeded, thereby amounting to a grave infraction of our constitution.
I believe that all the issues he raised in his objection are matters fit to be determined by the courts. To attempt to try his case outside of the court would be, in my humble opinion, to set a dangerous precedent which may seek to open the flood gates for men of power to using their office to solicit sex from unsuspecting female who approach them for help.
Those who eagerly commit these unsavory and brutish acts may do so with the confidence that they can use their connection and wealth to recruit legal luminaries, and men of solid legal minds, to defend their morally reprehensible acts, even while they occupy major public office.
While I would refrain from judging whether Mr. Greene is guilty of the allegation before him, I remain committed in my call for his resignation, as I believe his conduct in office is grossly reprehensible, immoral and massively unconscionable.
While he fights with the DPP and others to have the charge against him not prosecuted, I believe he must do the decent thing and resign.
If he is unable to make this decision I would ask his most competent and respectful batch of lawyers to help him to make this decision by applying the test of morality, in this case, for while cases are decided primarily by legal principles we can find comfort in the many precedents which reminds that the law also has a moral side.
Based on Henry Greene’s own admission, this case is a serious moral and ethical debate, for which those who advise Mr. Greene cannot ignore.
There is a conscionable side of every decent person, including the most learned and legally astute among us, and there is a conscionable thread which runs through every society which helps it to decipher right from wrong and aids in carving its unique and acceptable moral codes. Guyana is no different.
These moral codes often help judges in arriving at their decisions in cases. In our own country, the learned Justice of the Court of Appeal, in the notorious case of Yassin and Thomas, applied this conscionable test in handing down the sentence to the accused, when their lawyers argued that the defendants lengthy time in prison, prior to trial, amounted to cruel and inhumane punishment, and therefore constitutes a breach of article 141 of the Constitution.
The Justice of the Appeal Courts, in determining whether the defendants suffered cruel and inhumane treatment, then applied the conscionable test by asking whether the crime committed by the defendants was as such that it ‘shocked the conscience of the Guyanese people.’
The response was a resounding yes, the argument of breach or article 141 was rejected. In the case of Police Commissioner Henry Greene, if we ask the said question as to whether the top cop’s admission to having consensual sex with a female who went to solicit help shocked the conscience of the people, I am quite sure the question will be answered in the affirmative. If not we would be a nation in trouble.
Dr. Luncheon’s remarks that the PPP/C and Henry Green have an arrangement that he will not be in office at age sixty (60) must will also shock our conscience, given the present situation in which Mr. Greene is embattled in allegations of rape.
Such an arrangement cannot hold water, and it is not surprising that the PPP/C does not find this arrangement between them and Greene outrageous, if not illegal.
Lurlene Nestor

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