The sil­ly sea­son is here once more ‚accord­ing to the Jamaican papers Prime Minister Andrew Holness will report­ed­ly announce the date of the Elections on Sunday December 4^th. According to the coun­try’s con­sti­tu­tion elec­tion must be called by the Government , and must be held with­in three months of the dis­so­lu­tion of Parliament which itself has a life-span of five years. We fer­vent­ly hope that Jamaicans who are prone to vio­lence when the adren­a­line rush begins, will be able to con­trol them­selves from killing and maim­ing each oth­er, it would be too much for me to even both­er to expect matu­ri­ty from the bump heads that are up for elec­tion/re-elec­tion, from those at the top down to the young aspi­rants the rhetoric is the same inflamed bel­li­cose non­sense that we have all grown accus­tomed to, squash it please .

There is a lot in the news these days, the Leader of the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion refus­es to walk with the new Prime Minister in a show of sol­i­dar­i­ty toward the dis­man­tling of gar­risons, she claimed that a sym­bol walk will not enhance the process of dis­man­tling gar­risons, this may be true that a mere walk will not break down decades of men­tal brain­wash­ing, but Portia, can it real­ly hurt ?

DEBATES

Then there is the issue of debates , the Prime Minister said he want­ed to debate the oppo­si­tion leader, there has been much back and forth about this with Portia seem­ing to favor a team debate , at one point it seem there prob­a­bly would be no debates since they are not bound by law so to do, but from all indi­ca­tions Portia seem to have come out of hid­ing and has agreed to a series of three debates with Holness, this after the crit­i­cisms seemed to be get­ting loud­er that Portia real­ly was afraid to debate the younger well-edu­cat­ed Holness. We find this odd and less than kosher since Portia has been in rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al pol­i­tics before Holness was born, but we may be wrong.

ACKEE THIEF GETS PRISON TIME

Also in the news is a mat­ter that all Jamaicans should be hap­py about , but pre­dictably many are cry­ing foul. A man who breached the secu­ri­ty of the grounds of King’s House the res­i­dence of the Governor General and stole ack­ees from a tree was sen­tenced to three months in jail by a judge. There are howls of con­dem­na­tion from sev­er­al quar­ters of the coun­try , not least of which is the crim­i­nal sup­port­ing group Jamaicans for Justice and their char­la­tan leader Carolyn Gomes. They argue that the GG should inter­vene and grant clemen­cy to the con­vict­ed thief. The GG for his part has come out artic­u­lat­ing just under what con­di­tions he could inter­vene, which I will not go into here because I do not think any­one should inter­vene in the court’s deci­sion. For those who argue for lenien­cy by the GG, espe­cial­ly the crim­i­nal sup­port­ing JFJ liars, here’s a lit­tle bit of infor­ma­tion for you, you argue that you want an inde­pen­dent Judiciary yet when the Judiciary act inde­pen­dent­ly you want well placed peo­ple to inter­vene to free crim­i­nals( oonuh teefin fren) you cant’ have it both ways. What you real­ly want is a sys­tem that works the way you want it to work, when you want it to work, for whom you want it to work. Well that won’t work , we moved away from the British Monarchy a long time ago, we do not want any inter­fer­ence in the affairs of the courts by any­one, no more gov­ern­ing by decree, we now have a gov­ern­ment by consent.

Jamaica is a coun­try swim­ming in a cesspool of crime, not quite sure how to claw its way out of that morass, yet on the rare occa­sion that a crim­i­nal is pun­ished the crim­i­nal sym­pa­thiz­ers are out in full force con­demn­ing the courts for doing exact­ly what it should and with­in the frame­work that it has. One per­son com­ment­ed in anoth­er forum that there was no theft because the ack­ee was recov­ered at the scene , I asked him whether some­one who cuts his throat killing him, and is appre­hend­ed at the scene is guilty of mur­der? We Jamaicans are a spe­cial bunch, we refuse to allow facts or truth to get in the way of our opin­ions. As such many deci­sions are made in a knee-jerk man­ner with­out due dili­gence in think­ing them through. As if the calls for the ack­ee thief was not galling enough, the court has capit­u­lat­ed and grant­ed him bail, banana repub­lic any­one? You see I have no spe­cial beef with the ack­ee thief , what I have a prob­lem with are those who agi­tate for crim­i­nals, and the ensu­ing break­down in the jus­tice sys­tem that is beyond the scope of com­pre­hen­sion of those who agitate.

Lennox Campbell in the clown suit

Just recent­ly a Supreme Court Judge Lennox Campbell released a group of Cop killing mag­gots back onto the streets to kill more police offi­cers, sim­ply because he was inca­pable of empan­el­ing a jury, there is no prece­dent for Campbell’s actions and if allowed to stand it sets a dan­ger­ous mes­sage to the already too pow­er­ful crim­i­nal lawyers, frus­trate the process and the case gets thrown out of court.

For those who cry blue mur­der when the mur­der­ing scum bags are sent to meet their mak­ers , what do you think will hap­pen when cops see these punks again, do you think they will end up in a court of law, let me tell you, they will meet anoth­er kind of Judge, and that judge will have no sym­pa­thy, care­ful what you ask for.

Appeals court upholds bail for Patrick Powell.

As we have pre­dict­ed on this site the alleged killer of young Khajeel Mais, Patrick Powell would be released on bail . Powell who was grant­ed bail in the home cir­cuit court by judge Carol Beswick, but who remained in cus­tody because of a motion filed in the Appelate court by the pros­e­cu­tion, which object­ed to bail based on the fact that Powell had indeed fled the coun­try after killing 17 years old Mais as he rode in a cab to a fête being held at a promi­nent St Andrew High School.

Jamaican law clear­ly states that a sus­pect may be remand­ed in cus­tody if he/​she is a flight risk, mean­ing that per­son may not turn up for tri­al, or if the per­son may be a threat to poten­tial wit­ness­es. Powell demon­stra­bly is a clear and unequiv­o­cal flight risk , from what we hear he is an American cit­i­zen and he ran after the shoot­ing , he was lured back to the Island after one of his off­springs was arrest­ed on a seri­ous felony charge which was pend­ing. The Appeals Court now rules that Beswick did not act improperly.

THE BAIL ACT BE DAMMNED

Once again Jamaica’s mini gods have struck a blow for the con­nect­ed and well-heeled, but against the com­mon man when aggriev­ed, as we have sought to do we bring this to your atten­tion for your eval­u­a­tion and assim­i­lat­ing , you decide if these acts are in the best inter­est of Jamaica. Powell pic­tured here in hand­cuffs, not only ran from the coun­try after shoot­ing the young man but he brazen­ly refused to coöper­ate with the inves­ti­ga­tions, and refused to hand over the weapon which at the time of his arrest was report­ed­ly a licensed firearm. In any oth­er Country that would have land­ed him in prison straight away with­out any con­sid­er­a­tion of argu­ments from defense coun­sel, not so in Jamaica they let him out on the streets.We are well aware that law enforce­ment offi­cers are giv­en no respect in Jamaica so not coop­er­at­ing with the inves­ti­ga­tions is noth­ing, peo­ple who phys­i­cal­ly assault or wound offi­cers in the exe­cu­tion of their duties face no penal­ties, they are gen­er­al­ly sent home with­out even a conviction.

Since Jamaican Authorities refuse to uphold our laws it becomes expe­di­ent there­fore that we lob­by the Us State Department which sure­ly believe in the rule of law, and ask that they take a more detailed and seri­ous look at peo­ple com­ing out of Jamaica in the United States.Wit a view to ensur­ing that a more rig­or­ous and com­pre­hen­sive back­ground check be done to ensure that crim­i­nals who attack Jamaican offi­cers and com­mit oth­er crimes does not enter the United States to do the same , after all there is more than enough cas­es of these assaults hap­pen­ing to war­rant a seri­ous look by US author­i­ties. If change can­not hap­pen from with­in then we must ensure change hap­pen from without.

MIKE HENRY RESIGNS

glean­er photo.

Transport and works Minister Mike Henry has resigned in the recent rev­e­la­tions of gross cost over­runs and work report­ed­ly com­plet­ed to the tune of 23 mil­lion dol­lars yet those works are yet to be iden­ti­fied. damion.​mitchell@​gleanerjm.​com

This lat­est devel­ope­ment does not bode well for the rul­ing Jamaica Labor Party, Henry fol­lows close­ly behind Former Prime Minister Bruce Golding who stepped down over lin­ger­ing rum­blings and dis­con­tent from some quar­ters about his han­dling of the Christopher Coke extra­di­tion case. With Elections con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due soon and Prime Minister Andrew Holness desire to gain his own man­date, these devel­op­ments could not come at a worse time. Holness had just pulled to a vir­tu­al tie with the PNP in the polls , pri­mar­i­ly due to what vot­ers saw as his youth and per­ceived lack of ties to old school style politics.

Any momen­tum gained could eas­i­ly evap­o­rate for Holness if he fails to act quick­ly and deci­sive­ly to ensure that this mat­ter is aired out , with no inkling of coverup, but let­ting the chips fall where they may,. This is not the first time Mike Henry has been in the news as it relates to reck­less or extrav­a­gant spend­ing of tax­pay­ers money.

Vybz Kartel gets bail

Jamaica dance hall DJ Adija Palmer aka (vybz Kartel) who is in cus­tody charged with a whop­ping five mur­ders has been grant­ed bail by Supreme Court judge, Justice Bertram Morrison in rela­tion to the case involv­ing the mur­der of St. Catherine busi­ness­man, Barrington Burton. Bail was grant­ed in the sum of $3 million.

inter­est­ing­ly bail was grant­ed at an in cham­ber meet­ing between the judge and defense lawyers Tom Tavares Finson and Christian Tavares Finson. Palmer will be unable to take up the bail offer right away because of the oth­er cap­i­tal mur­der cas­es against him that are yet unre­solved. Of course reports indi­cate his lawyers are prepar­ing to take their win­ning argu­ments to the oth­er judge/​s in those mat­ters with a view to hav­ing him released on bail. You can then rea­son­ably con­clude that he will be out on the streets to direct­ly or through prox­ies threat­en and ter­ror­ize wit­ness­es involved in these pend­ing cases.

Great job Justice Bertram Morrison[sic] you have now entered the Jamaican judges hall of shame.

JamaJaJamaica’s elec­tions are called by the gov­ern­ment of the day and must be held with­in three months of the dis­so­lu­tion of Parliament which, itself, has a life-span of five years. Administratively, the coun­try is cur­rent­ly divid­ed into 60 con­stituen­cies, each hav­ing one rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Parliament. Constituencies increased from 32 in 1944 to 45 for the 1959 elec­tions, then to 53 in 1967 and in 1976 to its present num­ber.maica’s elec­tions are called by the gov­ern­ment of the day and must be held with­in three months of the dis­so­lu­tion of Parliament which, itself, has a life-span of five years. Administratively, the coun­try is cur­rent­ly divid­ed into 60 con­stituen­cies, each hav­ing one rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Parliament. Constituencies increased from 32 in 1944 to 45 for the 1959 elec­tions, then to 53 in 1967 and in 1976 to its present num­ber.ica’s elec­tions are called by the gov­ern­ment of the day and must be held with­in three months of the dis­so­lu­tion of Parliament which, itself, has a life-span of five years. Administratively, the coun­try is cur­rent­ly divid­ed into 60 con­stituen­cies, each hav­ing one rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Parliament. Constituencies increased from 32 in 1944 to 45 for the 1959 elec­tions, then to 53 in 1967 and in 1976 to its present numJamaica’s elec­tions are called by the gov­ern­ment of the day and must be held with­in three months of the dis­so­lu­tion of Parliament which, itself, has a life-span of five years. Administratively, the coun­try is cur­rent­ly divid­ed into 60 con­stituen­cies, each hav­ing one rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Parliament. Constituencies increased from 32 in 1944 to 45 for the 1959 elec­tions, then to 53 in 1967 and in 1976 to its present num