A matter of self interest

Apr 05, 2012 Editorial

People respond to issues based on very few things. They would react out of sympathy for the underdog or the oppressed; they would react out of self interest or they would react because of their emotions. Those emotions may be spurred by a dislike for an individual or simply pure hate inspired by a variety of factors.
In the case of the latter, judgements are clouded and facts are ignored. Many have jumped on the bandwagon of critics of the decision by Chief Justice Ian Chang simply because they may have a dislike for the Police Commissioner. They have opted to forsake the rule of law. And so we have a case being tried in the court of public opinion to the exclusion of the law.
The critics have also shown a classic case of accepting what is patently wrong with the system but what has become the norm simply because no one has either the knowledge or the money to challenge some of the things that happen to them from the time the police arrest them. In short, people are content to live with traditions and any exposure of the weaknesses in that tradition forms the basis for protest and criticism.
Further, Guyanese are not known to challenge authority with the result that the police arrest even when they do not have probable cause. The victims accept the loss of their freedom because the arrest, while illegal, has become the norm.
The Munroes and Wharton spent fifteen months in prisons on a charge that was bad in law and utterly meaningless. Why did they have to sacrifice fifteen months of their lives when from the inception the charge could not stand? Because their lawyers were both slothful and not probably not knowledgeable of the things they could have done. The society said nothing because they had come to accept that once an individual is charged with a serious crime that individual must do a stint of prison.
The magistrate did not have to take fifteen months to determine that the charge was bad in law. However, she remanded the Munroes and Wharton. The society expected that. The lawyers could have approached the High Court in the same way Police Commissioner Henry Greene did. Would there have been a public protest had the High Court ruled, quite correctly, that there was no basis for the treason charge?
Had that been done the matter would have been disposed of a long time ago and the people would not have lost valuable periods of their lives. But the society said nothing. There were token protests but that was to be expected.
In the United States, the head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss Kahn. A columnist wrote, “First you pull him off a plane, then you put him in handcuffs and frog-march him to court, next you refuse him bail and finally throw him in jail in the notorious Riker’s Island prison.
This is the treatment meted out to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) whose wealth gave him the ability to get ahead in life but whose heady ride as one of the Lords of Poverty may have made him get ahead of himself.”
In short order, the American courts realized that the charge was bad and they let Mr Strauss- Kahn go but by then his life was destroyed. He lost his job. There was no big outcry because a woman had made the allegation and the man was made to pay. It mattered not that the charge was fraudulent.
The reality is that many people do not have the money to hire lawyers who would be ready to run to the court to mount a challenge. If the police put a charge to a man, and they must, the man has a right to see what is being said against him. In Guyana, the absurdity has become the norm. The prosecution says nothing to the man, and the courts allow them to get away with that. It is wrong.
Henry Greene does the obvious but because he dared to break the mould and avoid the humiliation, the society mounts a protest. Mr Greene has lost his job because the society wants his blood. The law is a tool to be used according to the whim and fancy of people who have a vested interest in either of the parties involved. Sad to say while decisions should not be influenced by sympathy the society wants that to be the case until one of them is caught up.

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A matter of self interest

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