Keeping the criminals away from society

Mar 07, 2015 Editorial

Yesterday was Phagwah Day but every newspaper screamed the story of the jail sentence handed down to two child-killers. It was the largest sentence ever handed down by a Guyana court and it is coming after certain modifications to the laws.
Not so long ago Judges had no option but to impose the death penalty once a killer was found guilty. It was mandatory that once the jury returned a verdict of guilty then the judge must pronounce words to the effect that the convict “must hang by the neck until dead”.
There were problems here. There were members of the jury who were opposed to the death penalty so many, rather than hand down the guilty decision, would try to go for a manslaughter decision. The law now gives the judge the scope to impose a sentence other than the death sentence so juries need not be conservative with their decisions.
But it has been nearly two decades since Guyana has executed anyone and this is because of the various petitions to the United Nations Human Rights convention against the death penalty. At the time there were thirty-five people on Death Row, some for two decades and more. In the end this was deemed to be cruel and inhuman treatment. The critics did not consider the crime that landed the convict in the jail in the first place as cruel and inhuman. The goalpost had shifted.
Being a signatory to the United Nations Convention against the death penalty, the local courts began to take notice of the moratorium on the death penalty. They started to commute the death penalty to life sentences.
Of course, the society is split on the issue of the abolition of the death penalty. For one, there have been very serious crimes and there seems to be no letting up. People remember when the so called ‘kick down the door’ bandits emerged and waged a reign of terror. In fact, they were responsible for the grillwork that adorns so many homes today.
Desmond Hoyte, who was president, was quick to respond to the situation. He ruled that a man’s home was his castle and any invasion must be dealt with. The gallows swung into action and that nature of crime disappeared from the landscape. People feel that should the gallows be used again then there will be a reduction in serious crimes.
Enter Justice Navindra Singh. He has changed the judicial landscape. When he ascended to the bench he recognized that the gallows was silent and that those who committed serious crimes had the opportunity to return to society to commit similar crimes in the future so he devised a method that would keep the very serious criminals off the streets for most of their natural lives.
He began to impose the kind of sentences that had never been imposed in Guyana and they are having an effect. Criminals who at one time exhibited not an iota of care for the justice system are suddenly sitting up and taking notice. They are trying their damnedest to avoid appearing before Justice Singh.
One criminal who was billed to appear before the judge actually objected. He sought to petition the court to change the judge. This could have meant only one thing: the man was saying that he was guilty and that he was afraid of a lengthy sentence.
So we come to the history making or record-breaking sentencing that rocked the country. The Neesa Gopaul issue rocked this country when it was reported that her body had been found in a weighted suitcase tossed in a creek along the Soesdyke-Linden Highway.
The trial was even more riveting to the point where on the last day there were groups protesting outside the High Court. The sentence of 106 years and 96 years for the two convicts, one of whom was the mother of the dead girl, produced gasps and cries of satisfaction. The protesters, to a man, felt that justice was served. And for sure there is a judge who actually dispenses justice. After all we do not hang people anymore.

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Keeping the criminals away from society

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