Danger ahead: The “Oracle” and jury abolition

Apr 22, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

If this country accepts the abolition of the jury system based on the explanation that is currently being thrown around, its people are not fit to enjoy whatever freedom still remains.
Below are my arguments for the retention of the jury system, but a deeply felt point needs to be made before I go on – I have little faith in the judicial system which I believe is tainted by hopelessly incompetent magistrates. There are judges who are willing to submit to political pressure and who are not above financial incentives.
If Guyanese do not retain optimism in the jury system then I contend they don’t too in high judicial officers. Roger Khan’s lawyers, Simmel spoke of the “Oracle”, a judge that was more than just an acquaintance of Khan’s. Major David Clarke’s revelations to the US authorities contained damning evidence against the Oracle.
A judge brings a libel case to the courtroom eleven months after papers by the plaintiff were filed. This may be a record for the world not only Guyana. The plaintiff at the time was the sitting president. So the billion dollar question is; if you abolish the jury system, who or what do you replace it with? Certainly in present day Guyana not two or three judges sitting together.
Let us examine the one argument, so far, of a leading lawyer for the abolition of the jury system. He points out that in 22 sexual offences hearings before a jury, there was only one conviction. Of thirteen High Court trials, there was only one conviction. He then makes a fantastic leap and concludes that the jury system has failed.
He cites the Attorney General as saying the Guyanese people have lost confidence in the jury system. I take it he means the Guyanese population in Iraq, not in Guyana. I live in Guyana and unlike the AG I am always here. I mix with those in the less endowed classes more than the AG and I don’t get that impression about the jury system.
I wonder if by the Guyanese people the AG means the people in the PPP since the Lusignan acquittals.
A social scientist must be indignant when he reads the explanation by that lawyer. The social sciences refer to “variables.” You have to investigate all the variables before you come to conclusions. It is when you investigate the competing variables that laws, theories, trends and conclusions are discovered.
Let us examine the variables in the judicial system in Guyana. Why can’t the low percentage of convictions be connected to horrific investigative incompetence by the police? You beat an eighteen-year-old in the lock up every night and he is going to sign a confession to killing the person that you say he killed.
A well trained lawyer sees the hole in the police case and a decent jury must free the accused.
The second variable is the DPP office. Most young people in the world want to be lawyers and doctors because for them these are the two most prestigious professions. So status-seekers become lawyers and doctors. They cannot argue in court to save a dog charged with mauling a cat. But they are lawyers.
Cuban-trained Guyanese doctors the past ten years are not going to treat my family. No sir. They are not properly trained in poor Cuba.So we have a situation in Guyana where the DPP Chambers are not staffed with learned, intellectually endowed prosecutors and they just cannot stand up to defence lawyers who know their stuff.
Show me two magistrates who are bright lawyers and I will show you where Adolph Hitler is still living. Why is the jury system the fault and not these other two variables? But we can go further. Are we not insulting these jury members when we point to the low conviction rate? What are we saying? That they are stupid people? Are we saying they are only useful when they convict people?
Let us dig deeper into our analytical framework. If the argument is that a low conviction rate is the reason for us to remove the jury system then Guyana must immediately abolish two important institutions that are abysmal failures. The University of Guyana no longer meets any of the definitively laid out criteria for being a university. The police force in Guyana probably has the lowest arrest crime-solving rates in the world.
If you are going to contend that the rate of acquittal points to the non-functioning of the jury system then surely the police force’s record of solved crime calls for its immediate dissolution.

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Danger ahead: The “Oracle” and jury abolition

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