I stay in my corner and laugh at this sad country

Mar 07, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

When I read the following words in the Stabroek News, Sunday Editorial, my fear of the decline of this tragic nation just became deeper; “If the community service option were available then the Magistracy might be less disposed to impose so many custodial sentences. High bail also is responsible for a lot of committals to Lot 12. Certainly, if fewer men were remanded or sentenced to jail, the overcrowding would be relieved somewhat.” Go through the newspapers since Independence, fifty years ago, then research the television interview programmes since the television industry got started and you won’t find two commentaries by letter writers, academics or policymakers on unreasonably high bail
I remind you, I have referred to such absence since Independence 50 years ago. Go through my columns for the past five years, not ten or fifteen years but five years, and I have commented on magisterial indiscretions including burdensome bail that can hardly be met more than six times. Let us look at community sentencing. Where are the comments on this matter from the public or our intellectuals and policymakers? It hit the news recently when a famous footballer, Vibert Butts, was jailed for a small possession of ganja. Go back to 1988 when President Hoyte’s parliamentary majority passed the draconian anti-narcotics laws and see if there has been any denunciation of mandatory jail sentence for possession of a smoking utensil. To date, eight persons have been jailed for the maximum three years for possession of a smoking utensil.
This is a stupid, silly country that does not deserve to be on Planet Earth. A citizen can have in his/her legal possession a dangerous chemical, a lethal weapon, a harmful instrument like arrow and bow but a citizen cannot possess a mere smoking utensil. Obviously, it is not the gun that is the problem but the illegal use of it. The smoking instrument becomes entangled in a lawless action when you put a drug into it and smoke the banned substance. What was President Hoyte thinking when he put that nonsense in his legislation? Over the past ten years, I have done two columns on this utter despicability but the society is happy with its existence; policymakers have not changed the law. Last year, we had yet another case of imprisonment for possession of a smoking utensil.
Seventeen remand accused were horribly burnt to death and now we see the Stabroek News lamenting high bail and the need for more community service sentencing from Magistrates. Strangely, the newspaper avoided any analysis on the mentality of the Magistracy itself. Not one person in this entire country showed disgust which would have been justified when a Magistrate imposed six months on an 18 year old girl for leaving Guyana illegally for Suriname. Not one person in this country showed annoyance when Magistrate Judy Latchman remanded Ann Taylor even though the Prosecutor told the neutral Judge that Ms. Taylor was erroneously charged.
I took the Magistrate in front of the Judicial Service Commission. I was written to about a year after and was informed that an Inquiry freed her of any wrongdoing. I wasn’t even called to give evidence. One of this country’s most senior Judges told me that a Senior Magistrate may not be mentally right. I will be happy to name the person if the President requests such information.
We waited until Guyana experienced the worst prison riot in the English-speaking Caribbean before we raised our voice on persons being remanded unnecessarily and the enormous bail placed on accused. But will we learn? Do the research since we became a sovereign nation and you will find that not one citizen, including police officials and policymakers, have even hinted much less commented on the reckless use of the vehicular bright lights. Almost a hundred percent of drivers use the high beam as a matter of normality.
There will be a big outcry and all will get involved when a very important citizen with powerful authority dies in a car crash and the surviving wife tells the media, “My husband couldn’t see, he was blinded by the oncoming bright lights.” I did two full columns on this uncivilized use of the high beams the past ten years. Guyana will act when a senseless death occurs. Then and only then, you are going to see hundreds of cops on the roadways telling people to switch off their high beams. Do you know some drivers increase the wattage on their normal lights and their high beams too? There is a half-naked madman that roams Georgetown with a cutlass in his hand.

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