RM PUSEY SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM THIS CASE NOW:

Kern Omar Spencer, MP (born 21 June 1974 in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica) is a Jamaican politi­cian. A mem­ber of the People’s National Party, Mr. Spencer served as Member of Parliament (MP) for St. Elizabeth North Eastern from 2007 to 2011.

Kern Spencer. And his assis­tant Coleen Wright.

While a state min­is­ter in the ener­gy min­istry in the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment led by the PNP, Spencer was placed in charge of an ener­gy-sav­ing project. The project involved the dis­tri­b­u­tion of four mil­lion free Cuban light bulbs island-wide. The project was imple­ment­ed in July 2006.^[3] Allegations of irreg­u­lar­i­ties in the project were lev­eled against Spencer in Parliament in November 2007 by then Energy Minister Clive Mullings, who asked the audi­tor-gen­er­al and the con­trac­tor-gen­er­al to probe the mat­ter ^[3] Clive Mullings, told Parliament that $114 mil­lion was improp­er­ly spent on the dis­tri­b­u­tion of four mil­lion ener­gy-sav­ing light bulbs donat­ed by the Cuban Government to the peo­ple of Jamaica.^{[4]wikipedia.}

The Court of Appeal upheld a Supreme Court rul­ing that Senior Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey does not have the pow­er to sub­poe­na Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewelyn as a wit­ness in the tri­al. Pusey, who is pre­sid­ing over the tri­al, had chal­lenged the Supreme Court rul­ing.(jamaica​glean​er​.com)

Let me be clear about one thing, irre­spec­tive of my per­son­al dis­like for politi­cians, and my per­son­al feel­ings as to what hap­pened in this case, the accused, Kern Spencer must be giv­en due process. He must be pre­sumed inno­cent until proven guilty by a court of law.

All fair mind­ed Jamaicans want in this mat­ter is that jus­tice be done. I have no infor­ma­tion about the guilt or inno­cence of the accused, so I am thrilled that the high court has now cleared the way for the tri­al to go ahead.

From the begin­ning that this case came to the nation’s atten­tion I opined in these blogs and wher­ev­er else my views are allowed, that there would be mas­sive stone-walling which would see this case delayed and delayed until it is tossed from the cal­en­dar for want of prosecution.

There is prece­dent which sup­ports my cyn­i­cism, the pow­er­ful and well con­nect­ed in Jamaica sim­ply do not get con­vict­ed in a court of law or gets sent to prison. Despite mas­sive cor­rup­tion , graft , and acts of thiev­ery which per­me­ates Jamaica’s polit­i­cal system,I stand to be cor­rect­ed but to the best of my rec­ol­lec­tion there has only been one politi­cian ever con­vict­ed and sent to prison. That was for­mer labor Minister in the JLP ‚JAG Smith, (now deceased).

We don’t know what will hap­pen in this case, Spencer and the PNP can afford to pay some pret­ty com­pe­tent defense coun­sel, which is nev­er in short sup­ply in Jamaica. In fact I thought that like so many oth­er cas­es involv­ing the con­nect­ed, defense coun­sel would be able to use the laws to Spencer“s advan­tage to pre­vent a tri­al. When the loop-holes in the penal code are con­sid­ered , shod­dy police work, added to poor prepa­ra­tion and just bad pros­e­cu­tion, it’s a won­der any­one gets con­vict­ed for crimes in Jamaica.

Even when there are con­vic­tions they gen­er­al­ly gets over­turned on appeal.

I nev­er imag­ined that the stone-walling would come from the Bench. 

From the incep­tion of this medi­um, I have report­ed and com­ment­ed on the judi­cial activism of Judith Pusey. Case after case, com­ment after com­ment she has over­stepped the nor­mal deco­rum of judi­cial restraint. This per­for­mance how­ev­er takes the cake. There are not many instances if any, where a Magistrate has so inject­ed her/​himself into a case, that defense coun­sel did not need to get involved. The Magistrate appoint­ed her­self default-defense coun­sel for Kern Spencer.

She picked a fight with the Director of Public Prosecution on her author­i­ty to decide who should be used as wit­ness, as against who should be the prin­ci­pal offend­er, she chal­lenged the evi­dence, she chal­lenged the way the evi­dence was col­lect­ed, and she used tax­pay­ers mon­ey to chal­lenge the DPP to the High Court.

As I said then, this Magistrate needs to be tak­en down a peg, her brand of activism is bet­ter suit­ed for defense coun­sel, she should do the hon­or­able thing and resign upon which she can join Spencer’s defense team. The Jamaica peo­ple can­not and will not get jus­tice in this case as long as Judith Pusey is allowed to hear this case.

It is incum­bent on the Chief Justice to remove her from this case now in the inter­est of Justice.Whether she did any­thing wrong is not impor­tant, Justice must not only be done it must seem to be done. Her actions before have been eye­brow rais­ing on instance, ques­tion­able on oth­ers, on this case her behav­ior has been disgraceful.

Our coun­try do not need Magistrates or Judges who see their role as that of crim­i­nal defend­er, it is about time that some com­pe­tent author­i­ty take a real close look at her. Justice can­not be hostage to a Resident Magistrate whose moti­va­tions are unclear.

Ok scratch that there is no com­pe­tent author­i­ty in Jamaica to do that, God help our lit­tle Island.