Latest update May 21st, 2024 12:59 AM
Mar 19, 2011 Letters
Dear Editor,
Let me provide an analogy that illuminates the complete breakdown in the legal process in Guyana, and unambiguously demonstrates how the rule of law and its enforcement has become a joke.
The police are summoned to the scene of an altercation involving two parties. On their arrival at the scene they observed marks of violence on one individual, severe damage to his property, and some broken windows from the house of the other party.
On interviewing both parties, the person with the injury reported that he was beaten by several persons from the other party, that his vehicle was damaged, and that several articles had been unlawfully removed from his vehicle. The other party, which comprised of several male individuals, reported that the injured person had broken the windows in the house.
Now policemen receive training on how to proceed in matters like these, where there might not be independent witnesses, and I will attempt to lay out what that training instructs, and what is consistent with the Laws of Guyana.
First, after examining the scene and the parties the police have to determine what crimes, misdemeanors or offences were committed. On one side of the scenario presented, there is the report of Assault Causing Actual Bodily harm, Unlawful Damage to Property and Larceny. On the other side, there is a report of Unlawful Damage to Property. The police are therefore compelled to gather evidence from the scene that substantiate the several claims of the parties.
The visible signs of violence on the person of one party establish grounds for a charge of Assault Causing Actual Bodily Harm against the assailant/s he identifies. The damage to his vehicle establishes a related charge against the person or persons he identifies as being responsible for the act. The larceny issue would need more in-depth investigation, but to ensure that evidence that will establish such crime is not tampered with or disposed of, the police would need to detain everyone identified as being involved in that crime, until a search warrant could be obtained to search the nearby premises.
The damage to the window would, as a matter of sheer commonsense, require further investigation, but the police would be acting in a fair manner if they gave equal attention to that report.
Now if the police arrive on the scene of an altercation and discover that one of the parties have sustained injuries that are visible to the eye, then they are duty bound to escort that person to a Government Medical Practitioner in order to procure expert evidence of the nature of the injuries, as well as having the injuries attended to.
Statements should be taken from everyone involved, including any witnesses that might have been in a position to see and hear what transpired.
The police have the power to arrest anyone without warrant whom anyone else accuse of committing a crime or a misdemeanor. The statement of a virtual complainant identifying the source of his injuries along with a medical report setting out the details of such injury, even if they simply amount to bruises and abrasions, is enough to charge that source identified with Assault Causing Actual Bodily Harm. This is one of the most routine charges made by police in every part of Guyana.
Now I do not need to point out the incident upon which my aforementioned thoughts piggy back. When one objectively and impartially weighs the claims and evidence in the incident involving Mark Benschop and Presidential advisor Kwame McCoy, there is no question that the proceedings should have taken a course akin to what is laid out above.
That it did not clearly establishes that the ranks attending that scene were being unfaithful to the oath they took to discharge their duties without favour or affection, malice or ill-will. In this case the treatment of Mark Benschop is evidence of malice in the actions of the police, while the treatment of Kwame McCoy and his entourage was a classical expression of the favour and affection they swore to avoid in the execution of their duties.
The police are not empowered or authorised to determine the guilt or innocence of persons, and thus should not allow their investigations and prosecution of crimes to be accompanied with actions and emotions that suggest, even slightly, that they are doing just that.
The Courts of Guyana is the only forum authorised to determine the guilt or innocence of persons. That one of the parties involved in that incident is connected to the highest political office in Guyana glaringly highlights the political coercion that attends every action or non action of law enforcement in Guyana. That the holder of that office, who has never been shy about lecturing the nation on the importance of due process and the rule of law, is obviously unperturbed by this happening demonstrably manifest the Orwellian transformation of Guyana. To quote the words of Lewis Powel Jr. a former Judge on the US Supreme Court, “Equal justice under the law is not merely a caption on the facade of the Supreme Court building; it is perhaps the most inspiring ideal of our society. It is one of the ends for which our entire legal system exists…it is fundamental that justice should be the same, in substance and availability, without regard to economic status.” Sadly in Guyana we have crossed the Rubicon to another side, where such lofty ideals have now become old fashioned and out of date.
Robin Williams
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