Attorney says Charles Ramson’ letter is a comedy of errors

Nov 19, 2016 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Charles S. Ramson has written a letter (“President Granger accused of violation of sub judice principle” – KN, Sunday November 13). He has inveighed against, vilified, and ridiculed the President. He is Carvil Duncan’s Defence Attorney. The President had made some ex tempore comments/statement about “insufficiency of evidence” (SOE) and “presumption of innocence” (PoI) on a TV programme (“The Public Interest”). Opposition MP and former AG Anil Nandlall had publicly argued for the disbandment of the Duncan tribunal.
He initiated the debate and disputations. So; the SOE and PoI comment was fair comment on that matter of public interest. It is discreditable to take it out of that context. Ramson’s letter amounts to a comedy of errors. It contains imputations and innuendos of tyranny and abuse of power. Imputations and innuendoes of that type cannot be left unanswered. They are pernicious. Ramson has ignored and/or disregarded the Constitution. What then, is the constitutional truth? I hold no brief for President Granger. I demur out of public interest.
First, error 1 – his failure to appreciate the necessity of, and articulate some interpretation of the Constitution as he impugns acts or omissions done under constitutional authority. In this matter that authority is essentially article 225. Ramson writes and inveighs with misguided obsession about the PoI; but not once is any mention made of article 225, which has no relation to PoI.
It is not rocket science that to arrive at or know constitutional truth, necessarily requires an interpretation of the Constitution (article 225), I maintain as irrefutable earlier arguments and proposition on this aspect. (see KN, Sunday November 13 under the caption – “An Attorney says Anil Nandlall misread the Constitution” and SN 11th November, under the caption – “Nandlall has stretched the wording of article 225 of the Constitution)
Mr. Ramson writes and inveighs as if article 225 is but a mirage, and does not exist at all. So he makes no effort to relate his arguments to the constitution’s wording thereby showing how “insouciant abuse of power” and non adherence to “separation of power” principle and questions about the tribunal’s “impartiality or its ability to come to an impartial outcome….” has happened, or, is likely to happen. Imagine his disregard of the clear wording of article 225 that the tribunal’s members are “selected” by the Judicial Service Commission, and the President can only appoint as tribunal members those persons selected by the Judicial Service Commission (an autonomous body not subject to the direction or control of the President/Prime Minister or anyone else (article 226)).
It is this callous disregard for clear constitutional prescriptions that underpins his error. By what constitutional logic can the President’s statement about SOE and PoI threaten or undermine the impartiality of such a tribunal as conceived by article 225? Having by article 225(4)(a) (consistently with article 144(8) requirement of independence and impartiality of the tribunal) effectively disabled the President from appointing persons in his own deliberate judgment by making it his constitutional duty to appoint only and exclusively those selected by the Judicial Service Commission, and moreover limiting the selection to persons who are sitting judges or constitutionally eligible for appointment as a judge, it is hardly plausible, and, plainly incongruous that the draftsman had contemporaneously vested the President with some latent constitutional capacity to cause the tribunal not to act with impartiality. (here I am endeavouring an interpretation of the formula in article 225(4)(a)).
On his argument, notwithstanding the insulation of the tribunal members from presidential influence contrived by article 225(4) (a), such insulation yet, enables the President to cause the tribunal not to act with impartiality. The law (which sometimes can be an ass) cannot be so asinine as that! We are in the sphere of constitutional law. We take the Constitution as it is. We cannot subject it to distortions, in its operationality, based on political angst. Nor is it, as if the tribunal would be concerned with a PoI point/issue.
Second, error 2 – the view (with which both Attorneys Nandlall and Ramson appears to be obsessively fixated) that Magistrate Daly’s dismissal of the fraud charge against Mr. Duncan somehow means in law that no civil or constitutional action is competent or maintainable against him, has no support in case law, and ignores and misapprehends the fundamental distinction in our jurisprudence between criminal trials (on the one hand) and civil proceedings (on the other).
It is this fundamental distinction that the draftsman in article 225 has recognized and embraced by limiting the Prime Minister’s, President’s and tribunal’s powers to “misbehavior” – which in its constitutional context is a tort (i,e. a civil wrong); not a criminal offence. And that is why article 225(5) makes the Commission of Inquiry Act, (COIA) applicable, of course the extent that it is not inconsistent with the Constitution.
Maxwell Edwards
Attorney-at-Law

Editor’s note; Mr. Edwards’s letter will conclude in our Sunday edition

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