A travesty of justice/due process

Dear Editor,
Fifteen Customs officers will, Tuesday February 10, 2008 (today), meet for the first time with their employer – Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) — to answer allegations which, according to the letters received, have already been determined against them.

Thus their names were all peddled nationally and internationally as being ‘guilty’ of offences, without them having been given an opportunity to be heard before such allegations were publicised.

This stems from a report which is so prejudicial, biased, and pathetic, having form but no substance, and void of all material worth; a report clearly made to appease His Excellency; a report which, from its first page to its last, does not establish that Polar beer arrived in this country through an approved wharf. Nor that any of the 15 officers committed any crime. How can 200,000 cases of beer fit into only 40 containers? Something is wrong.

Every child on the West Coast of Demerara, as well as every smuggler in Guyana, knows that smuggled goods emanating from Venezuela do not arrive in Guyana through an approved port or wharf.

So the innocent officers go to meet with the GRA Board even under threat that failure to attend the interview will result in disciplinary action being taken against them – an interview for allegations which have already been determined against them. Don’t we, as a nation, care anymore?

Doesn’t the President care about the unfair treatment of his citizens? What about the Cabinet Secretary, Parliament, Government, Opposition, Judiciary, legal luminaries and civil society? Is due process a thing of the past? Obsolete?

These officers have all been publicly criticised, chastised, criminalised, condemned, and demonized without due process – all because of a report which is riddled with inconsistencies, inaccuracies and overt bias. Have we stopped being analytical?

To the 15 officers: we, the concerned citizens of civil society, know that you are innocent. May God be with you as you attend your interview (trial) in the GRA Board Room.
Allahu Akbar