Magistrate Leron Daly should be disciplined

Dec 21, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – On Friday last, Justice Priya Beharry granted bail to a person given three years of imprisonment by Magistrate Leron Daly. I cannot discuss the trial because there is an appeal. But I will discuss the parameters of the Sexual Offences Act in the context of the freedoms that hold modern society intact.
Justice Beharry requested Magistrate Leron Daly to provide a written judgement so she could be guided by the request for bail by attorney Dexter Todd three weeks ago. She set Friday as the deadline and if no submission then she would grant bail. She did after the magistrate did not comply.
Now it is possible that Justice Beharry, three weeks ago would not have given the defendant his liberty. But then again she may have. It means because of the magistrate’s noncompliance, the defendant had to spend three weeks in jail. The applicant has a family including a little child. No judicial system should treat the substance of liberty so causally.
The man was convicted under the Sexual Offences Act. I believe under that law no person should be at the mercy of one adjudicator. Such trials should be before a judge and jury. The Sexual Offences Act was a response to the unmitigated anger of society. As a result, it has lacerated the open nature of a democratic society.
The press is not allowed when such trials are taking place. This is not only a repellent but a denial of what an open, free society should be. It insults the priceless role the press plays in showing society what is wrong with its fulcrums when those pillars are either shaky or being weakened by incompetence or corruptibility . In the US, two of the most famous cases of sexual molestation – Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein – were conducted in open court.
There is only one situation where the press worldwide is prevented from reporting and that is in certain types of treason, not treason in general. The press is excluded when information about national security is too sensitive to be reported on. In the last treason case in Guyana, Mark Benschop and I observed the trial under Judge Beharry who was then the Chief Magistrate. What the judge or magistrate should do in sexual offence trials is to instruct the press what not to print but the press should be allowed to report on any trial in a democratic country. Of course we have a childish, useless, pathetic press association that is just one more stain on the fabric of this nation that makes the world laugh at us.
I saw the fundamental error in the Sexual Offences Act when the son of one of Guyana’s most prominent names faced a judge and jury. He was accused of inserting his finger in the vagina of an underage girl. I knew the fellow because he cleaned my car. He worked at the wash-bay which is next to the AFC head office on the western continuation of the Railway Embankment. He was given 45 consecutive years in jail.
Now read how the court arrived at the “fact” that the girl was underage. A letter was submitted by the Georgetown Hospital stating that Mary Jones (random name) gave birth on a particular day to a baby girl. There was no evidential connection between that letter and the age of the accused. I believe then and still believe that the girl was not underage.
Imagine if Nigel Hughes, Anil Nandlall or Sanjeev Datadin was the defence attorney. Right there and then that case would have ended. The accused who did not have a high school education defended himself. He was given 45 consecutive years by a female judge. I asked attorney Madan Kissoon to file an appeal which cannot be done because after five years, the judge is still to write her decision.
The evidence of the accused was incredible. She admitted that at the time of the trial she was having sex with a boy whose name she admitted she did not know. The evidence in the case in Magistrate Daly’s court is not one I can comment on because of the sub judice principle but I will advise readers to read between the lines.
Let’s conclude with the magistrate’s non-response to Judge Beharry’s request. Is the Judicial Service Committee going to investigate her? The answer is no. Why? Because no one in this society; no organization in this country; no parliamentarian in this land, no Cabinet minister in this nation could be bothered with the way that young man was denied three weeks of his liberty. Maybe they think he is not a human. Are they human?
(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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