Thieves quoting law

Jul 14, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

One night, thieves broke into the home of a man and his wife. The thief was caught red- handed with jewelry and money belonging to the couple. The police were summoned and arrived.
When the man was questioned, he admitted to being on the property. But he said that the money belonged to him and that that he had found the jewels earlier in the day while walking in a park. When the police asked him why he did not turn-in the items he allegedly found, he said: “finders’ keepers; losers weepers”.
The thief decided to try a thing. He decided to argue law. He said that the couple had to prove that the jewels were theirs. Even though he was caught red-handed, he said that by law: “finders’ keepers; losers weepers”.
He was sentenced to eight years imprisonment. He was still talking law when they were taking him to the prison.
Once upon a time, a chimney sweep found a gemstone inside a piece of jewelry. He took the item to a goldsmith for an appraisal. He did not realize that the nickname for the goldsmith was Greedy Smith. The goldsmith took out the precious stone and gave the chimney sweep the money to the value of the rest of jewelry.
The chimney sweep sued and won. The Court held that he was the prior possessor and therefore had greater rights to the property, second only to the rightful owner, whoever that was. A thief’s right to property is, however, void and once theft is established, the prior possessor right is annulled.
The thief in the first case could have argued law all night. Once it was established that he had stolen the property, all the law in the world would not grant him rights to the jewelry which he took from its rightful owners.
What we have taking place in Guyana today is a case in which thieves have been caught red-handed on more than one occasion. A plot to steal an election was neutralized. And those who were stealing the election have been exposed in front of the whole world.
But yet they want to claim victory. And they have a lot of people, inside and outside of Guyana, supporting their criminal actions.
The world knows that they were trying and are still desperately trying to steal an election from the rightful winners. The world is condemning them but they are so shameless, they are quoting law, just like the thief who was quoting law even though he was caught-red handed stealing.
First they were caught with a spreadsheet. They were then caught with a bed sheet and finally with a cheat sheet of ‘declarations’.
They tried to quote law but the law said the rights of thieves are void. It said that the rightful winners should be declared. But this is not stopping the thieves from quoting law. They are now interpreting the Court’s ruling to say that losers are the winners and winners are losers. This has become more ridiculous than a circus.
But this is a typical trick which was tried before. The same Court had ruled on how a Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission should be appointed. Then it was countered that the President had a right to nominate someone to be added to the list of names to be submitted by the Leader of the Opposition. The illogicalness of this argument was obvious. If you have a horse in the race, obviously you would pick that horse would you not?
The CCJ ruling of last Wednesday has not ended chatter about law. But it has reduced the options open to the thieves to use law to gain what is not theirs.
Attempts continue to be made to steal the election. Thieves are on the loose. Desperation is stepping in because the plot to steal the election is being retarded at every attempt.
Honest people are determined to ensure that the thieves do not succeed. Those who were trying a thing and were attempting to steal the rights of others have found out that when you are a thief you lose your right to hold on to what is not yours.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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