Attorney says Charles Ramson’s letter is a comedy of errors

Nov 20, 2016 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Editor’s note; this concludes Mr. Edwards’ response to Charles Ramson as carried in our edition yesterday.
The Commission of Inquiry Act (COIA) is not applicable, and never applies, to criminal trials. In our jurisprudence PoI argument is utterly incompetent, unmeritorious and immaterial in civil proceedings for tort. Innocent of what? The tort? Our Laws knows no such notion or proposition. Such a notion is not within the contemplation of the supreme law of the constitution and, frankly, is inconsistent with it. If these were the considerations which the President endeavoured to adumbrate or explain in his extempore statement (albeit with perceived ineloquence) then he was/is absolutely right and unimpeachable.
He was not commenting on the other pending trial by magistrate Daly. Apart from the wording, the scheme of the Constitution is important for an understanding as to how it operates, and what is intended. If presumption of innocence right exists, so too would the fundamental right against double jeopardy,(article 144(5)) exist at the enquiry. Both Attorneys would know (I presume) that any such point at the enquiry would be outrageous and laughable. And if there is no right against double jeopardy in this matter, by what constitutional logic is there some presumption of innocence right? There is simply – none. (recall that in the Rodney King -police beating, and O.J. Simpson- wife’s murder matters in the U.S.A, subsequently, civil/constitutional actions for damages succeeded in both, after jury acquittals in criminal trials in both).
American PoI and double jeopardy constitutional rights are similar to ours – even more jealously protected by their courts. Locally, this distinction or dichotomy or mutual exclusivity was brought into sharp focus in the case of Braithwaite V Porter (1969) G.L.R. 495. (successful civil action for indecent assault, police not prosecuting for criminal offence of rape)
Third, error 3 – his notion that the magisterial dismissal requires discontinuance of the tribunal’s enquiry. What Law or principle requires President Granger in the discharge of his article 225 duties to abide or consider himself bound by the Magistrate’s appealable dismissal judgment? I know of none. Does an interpretation of article 225 require us to find that the draftsman has imposed some kind of constitutional gag and frustration (as understood in law) on the President? No. In appealability inheres the right of non-acceptance. Not as Mr. Ramson so flippantly puts it “After the dismissal of the charge against Duncan by a magistrate, Granger’s statement manifests a refusal to accept those findings and presupposes an adjudication of guilt….”
Both Attorneys must know that a magistrate’s dismissal judgment carries no imprimatur of non-appealability or finality about it. The Prime Minister having made a recommendation to the President, he was under a constitutional duty to appoint a tribunal – criminal charge or not, dismissal or not. (my interpretation of article 225). All that has happened is that the President has discharged that duty. Is he now to abdicate that duty because of an irrelevant magisterial dismissal? A dismissal which might not even be admissible as evidence of any fact in issue before the tribunal at its enquiry.
So, the tribunal when it investigates by hearing and evaluating the evidence and seeing the witnesses for itself and applying the balance of probabilities standard of proof (as Mitchell, J did in the Braithwaite case) can have a wholly different opinion (from magistrate’s Daly’s) about sufficiency of evidence for the purposes of the constitutional enquiry into misbehaviour. The tribunal’s recommendation to the President has to be based on its findings. The President is bound by that recommendation. The President might have had these considerations in mind when he made his ex tempore statement.
Fourth, error 4 – the sub judice point – the contemporary law is that unless the trial involves a jury of laymen (which is legally and practically not the case with either magistrate Daly, or the tribunal) who, sensibly, the law considers as impressionable, fair comment during a pending trial is not considered a contempt of court. Justice is not a cloistered virtue; it permits respectful, even out – spoken, comments.
Finally, (on an unrelated matter) Mr. Ramson is on a very slippery libel slope – when he writes “… ask President Granger about the alleged threat on Duncan’s life with the now infamous ‘blood on carpet’ statement” (emphasis mine). A metaphor it is/was, and was intended to be. You cannot take a metaphor out of its context and impute reprehensible characterization (a fortiori deadly intentions) to the President. (Jagan et al V L.F.S. Burnham (1973) Court of Appeal – Guyana).
All that I have articulated above I would put into a nutshell thus: what the Constitution itself has recognized and legitimized, Ramson seeks, piously, to derecognize and delegitimize. Whatever the reply, these are my last words on these matters.
Maxwell E. Edwards
Attorney – At – Law 

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