Coincidence Or Conspiracy ?

Coincidence or Conspiracy ?

This ques­tion evokes scowls of increduli­ty from cer­tain quar­ters , yet it is impor­tant to look at the two crim­i­nal cas­es which have kept Jamaicans riv­et­ed to court-watch­ing over the last few years. The cas­es involved 1) the crim­i­nal mur­der tri­al of Adijia Palmer dance-hall icon and entre­pre­neur and 2) the Money laun­der­ing and fraud charges Kern Spencer ( PNP ) Member of Parliament and Junior Energy Minister faced. Conscientious observers who want a crime free Jamaica saw these two cas­es as a water­shed moment in the coun­try’s fight to break the back of cor­rup­tion. Emotions ran high on both sides of either case. Many dug in based on polit­i­cal loy­al­ties in the Spencer case and many are unable to digest the seri­ous­ness of mur­der in the Kartel case. A dou­ble guilty some thought, would send a strong mes­sage to two impor­tant sec­tors of the coun­try ‚that no one was above the laws. The man on the streets , ever sus­pi­cions of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, would nev­er accept that Kartel may have been cor­rect­ly con­vict­ed of mur­der. After all Kartel’s own defense was based sole­ly on the notion that he was framed by the evil sys­tem. A move designed to take full advan­tage of the dis­trust cer­tain sec­tors of the soci­ety have of the Police. The deci­sion by Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey to sum­mar­i­ly dis­miss the case against Kern Spencer will cement the notion that there are two dif­fer­ent brands of Justice in Jamaica for a long time to come. Pusey did seri­ous dam­age to the sys­tem of Justice from the start. Whether it was ego, cor­rup­tion or prin­ci­ple involved, it may for­ev­er depend on who you talk to .

Notwithstanding, the per­cep­tion of many ‚is that the out­come of the Kern Spencer crim­i­nal case was decid­ed before it was even men­tioned in the courts. To the man on the streets  Kartel is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of them , their strug­gles, their wish to shine despite adver­si­ties. Kartel is them , his suc­cess­es are theirs they believe. They live vic­ar­i­ous­ly through him. Kern rep­re­sents the polit­i­cal class, insu­lat­ed from the laws,rulers who do not need to account. In this case I believe the actions of the tri­al judge made that absolute­ly clear. Both the soci­etal elites and the man on the streets may wish to reflect on these two cas­es. The upper-crust-men­tal­i­ty which ignores the fact that a seri­ous breach may have been com­mit­ted, yet was allowed to go unpun­ished, are no dif­fer­ent than the man on the streets who clos­es his mind to the fact that Clive lizard Williams is dead and their hero may very well have had some­thing to do with it.