When We Can No Longer Trust The Referees It’s Time To Pick Up The Ball And Go Home…

For years this lone voice has been shouting in the wilderness about the Jamaican judiciary and the pass that branch of government has gotten. The judiciary has literally escaped unscathed as it relates to the negative perceptions of corruption in government agencies. But does the judiciary pass the smell test, or is it just better at masking the smell of the filth.

There is pre­cious lit­tle if any ques­tion about my per­son­al dis­dain for the way Government con­ducts busi­ness in Jamaica . But it must also be under­stood that my dis­dain tran­scend the tra­di­tion­al two war­ring polit­i­cal par­ties which has done irrepara­ble harm to our beau­ti­ful island but extends to agen­cies like the judi­cia­ry which pre­tend to do the right thing but is equal­ly as cul­pa­ble for the morass in which our coun­try finds itself as any­one else.

Since 1983 I have watched the work of the judi­cia­ry with keen inter­est both as a police offi­cer view­ing from inside the court­rooms and with­out as an aver­age observ­er who fol­lows the through the courts own decisions.
I saw some of the most con­sum­mate pro­fes­sion­als, yet I also wit­nessed some of the most arro­gant abuse of pow­er and one-sided appli­ca­tion of jus­tice which can only be char­ac­ter­ized as injus­tice in those very courtrooms.
The pref­er­en­tial treat­ment and def­er­ence giv­en to cer­tain mem­bers of the pri­vate bar in many instances feeds the nar­ra­tive that if one has name recog­ni­tion, mon­ey and con­nec­tions no one can touch you in Jamaica.

The judi­cia­ry is sup­posed to be the ref­er­ee between cor­rupt gov­er­nance and the peo­ple ‚using the pow­er of law . When the lines are so blurred that they are no longer dis­cernible there are no rules any­more. Chaos become the order of the day when we can no longer trust the ref­er­ee. It may be time to pick up our ball and go home.
No longer can we look at the courts and pre­tend that the ran­cid stain of cor­rup­tion which has cor­rod­ed the nation total­ly eclipsed the courts to cor­rupt all else.
We have seen the way a sin­gle Resident Magistrate made a mock­ery of the entire crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in order to pro­tect a sin­gle politi­cian from fac­ing justice .
We have wit­nessed the way cer­tain lawyers can have the most dan­ger­ous killers grant­ed bail over and over and over again regard­less of the num­ber of times they kill and are arrested.
We have wit­nessed the slap on the wrist giv­en to many whom they could not help but with a slap, because of the strength of the evidence.
We have wit­nessed the near impos­si­bil­i­ty of get­ting a case to move for­ward depend­ing on the sta­tus of the defendant.
Cases drag on for years on pro­ce­dur­al non­sense while they blame oth­ers for the back­log . This gives cre­dence for the less than noble of intent to demand we sim­ply throw out all the cas­es over five years old and sim­ply for­get the dead vic­tims . Forget their griev­ing fam­i­lies. Forget the police and the work they put into bring­ing the charges . Simply allow the mur­der­ers to walk free to kill again .
Those are they who would head min­istries of Justice .……If only the word jus­tice could choke them leav­ing them gasp­ing for breadth for dar­ing to use a word which their very exis­tence is anti­thet­i­cal to .

(TRAFIGURA)

Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn says author­i­ties in The Netherlands have made their obser­va­tions about the Trafigura case and may have already drawn their own conclusions.

Llewellyn was speak­ing in an inter­view with The Gleaner/​Power 106 News Centrefol­low­ing a deci­sion by the Court of Appeal yes­ter­day to dis­miss an appli­ca­tion she filed to strike out an appeal by lawyers for People’s National Party (PNP) President Portia Simpson Miller and oth­er PNP func­tionar­ies. The rejec­tion of the appeal means a fur­ther delay in the Trafigura hear­ing to ques­tion Simpson Miller and oth­ers about a $31 mil­lion dona­tion to the PNP by Dutch firm Trafigura Beheer.

The case has been adjourned since November 2011 when the PNP lawyers obtained a court order that placed the pro­ceed­ings on hold until the hear­ing of an appeal ass to whether the mat­ter should hap­pen in open court. Llewellyn said her office will now write to Dutch author­i­ties out­lin­ing the deci­sion of the Appeal Court and await their instruc­tions. The DPP is the des­ig­nat­ed Central Authority under the Mutual Assistance Treaty that is act­ing on behalf of Dutch author­i­ties. Dutch author­i­ties want to ques­tion Simpson Miller, PNP chair­man Robert Pickersgill, the Party’s Region Three chair­man Phillip Paulwell, for­mer PNP gen­er­al sec­re­tary Colin Campbell and busi­ness­man Norton Hinds under oath about the $31 mil­lion dona­tion while Trafigura Beheer had a con­tract with the government.
http://​jamaica​glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​n​e​w​s​/​2​0​1​6​0​6​0​4​/​n​e​t​h​e​r​l​a​n​d​s​-​m​a​y​-​h​a​v​e​-​a​l​r​e​a​d​y​-​d​r​a​w​n​-​c​o​n​c​l​u​s​i​o​n​s​-​t​r​a​f​i​g​u​r​a​-​c​a​s​e​-​dpp

The Director of Public Prosecution laments the Dutch may have already formed their opin­ion , I have no idea what those opin­ions are , nei­ther do I know what her per­son­al feel­ings are but what I do believe is this.
The Mutual Assistance Treaty which exists between the Dutch Authorities and Jamaica is not worth the paper it is writ­ten on. Surely Dutch Authorities must smell the putrid stench of the cesspool which is the Island’s jus­tice sys­tem. A sys­tem ren­dered impo­tent by those who triple-dip as legislators,officers of the courts and as defense attorneys.
On that the Jamaican judi­cia­ry has sac­ri­ficed dig­ni­ty and hon­or on the altar of polit­i­cal expe­di­en­cy and for that we all should hang our heads in shame.

Dutch offi­cials act­ing through the ODPP under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty want to ques­tion Simpson Miller; Party chair­man Robert Pickergill; PNP Region Three chair­man Phillip Paulwell; and par­ty mem­ber Norton Hinds about a $31 mil­lion dona­tion to the PNP while the par­ty was in gov­ern­ment with an oil-lift­ing con­tract with the Dutch firm. In the mean­time, all pro­ceed­ings have been stayed. This means the mat­ter of the ques­tion­ing of the PNP offi­cials will not pro­ceed when it’s called up in court next week.(jamaicagleaner.com).

So there you have it.……