Bigamy: I will contribute to the legal fee and bail of Andrew Simon

Jan 10, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News- If Andrew Simon is reading this, I suggest he contacts me at 614-5927. I can only contribute a tiny sum (a few thousands) to his legal fee. I will contact several lawyers to see if they can do his case for a small fee.
I will try to raise money to contribute to his bail. I cannot see for the crime of bigamy, a magistrate would impose an enormous sum in bail. I hope if he surrenders himself to the police, he is put on low station bail.
The world has changed beyond recognition since bigamy became a criminal offence. Bigamy should not be an offence for which you should sleep in the lock-up or be given a large bail that you cannot meet.
One of the best writers I have read is Oscar Wilde. His life was ruined because he was convicted of homosexuality. One of the men who helped the Allies to win World War 2 by his code-breaking talent, Alan Turning, was castrated by law for homosexuality. He committed suicide.
Today, man can legally marry man, woman can legally marry woman. Marijuana in today’s world is being decriminalised in many countries. I am not defending the act of bigamy but I was nonplussed to see the police issue a wanted bulletin for Simon’s arrest. Simon’s picture was in all the dailies as if he is a wanted child rapist.
Who did he inflict violence upon? Who did he rob? Whose home he burglarised? Who did he threaten? Whose property did he steal? My point is the police issuance of a warrant makes it appear that bigamy is such a notorious crime that this man should be arrested on sight.
There should be a more modern approach to many low-level offences that the modern world inherited centuries ago. What the authorities need to do with Simon is to charge him, annul his second marriage and give him a warning. Why a police station should deny bail to someone wanted for bigamy. I can’t see why a magistrate should impose high bail.
I think in certain countries, a Muslim is entitled to have more than one wife. I don’t think that obtains in Guyana. There are just too many obsolete laws on the books in this country that we as a former colony should extirpate with haste. I am not suggesting bigamy is one. But I will argue that since it is a non-violent crime, it should not carry a big bail. Look at the intense police publicity over Simon and you would think that he is an alleged mass murderer.
My interest in Mr. Simon’s case is the police bulletin and the possibility of being detained for a crime in which detention should not happen. I could understand why Mr. Simon ran. He probably thinks, and he would be right to do so, that the police will lock him up and he may be remanded or assigned a huge bail in the magistrate’s court that he cannot meet and therefore would be on remand for months.
Here is an absurdity that is sickening. Do you know bigamy is an indictable offence? So, you endure a preliminary enquiry in a magistrate court then you go in front a judge and jury. Aren’t the courts loaded with cases with frightening criminal contents to spend time on a bigamy offence?
The Mayor and his deputy told me that over 50 percent of the large buildings in Georgetown do not pay rates and taxes, which is a legal obligation. So, a man marries twice and may spend overnight in the police station and may even be denied bail but wealthy folks laugh at the law when the law demands that they pay rates and taxes. NIS payment evasion by employers is a criminal offence. Yet dozens of such people are yet to be charged.
Should bigamy remain an indictable offence? No, it should not and like so many colonial era laws, this should change. There is no word that can adequately describe the absurdity in the 21st century in Guyana that on filing for a divorce, only three reasons can be accepted by the courts – infidelity, domestic violence and desertion of the marital home.
There is no provision in the law that allows the married couple to go in front of a judge and tell the judge that both parties agree that there is no longer any desire to keep the marriage going so there is mutual agreement to terminate it.
(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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