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Feb 02, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Aren’t the people with power watching? Aren’t they worried about justice contortions and justice corrugations in such a small population like Guyana where everyone knows about all the unlawful, lawless and unjust things that occur every passing day? The trouble with people with political/state power is that they are no longer on the ground to assess the thinking of the ordinary citizen.
The man who digs the drain, the lady who does wash-room cleaning, the waterfront labourer, are not the unintelligent folks we think they are. They are not so by a long way. If we mix with those people you would see that they know about the secret, invisible skullduggeries that envelope this society. The reason is that you cannot keep a secret in a small town and Guyana is a small enclave.
The ordinary folk in Guyana feels that justice is not for the poorer classes and that the humans in the upper brackets are given untouchable status. Let us look at the circumstances surrounding a magistrate’s decision to free a city attorney of death by dangerous driving. The magistrate dismissed the charge because vital documents that should have been available to the prosecution could not be found.
Prosecution witness, Constable Kewsi Carmichael’s testimony had to be curtailed because of a missing page from his original statement.
The magistrate also ruled that it was unnecessary for police photographer, Corporal Rockcliffe, who photographed the scene of death to give evidence because of other missing documents. So that’s it! The defendant was freed because documents requested by the state for a successful prosecution were missing.
The defendant, attorney Keisha Chase, had to be freed as a matter of law because you could not have prosecuted her if vital documentary evidence is not submitted for the courts to examine. The issue here is not Ms. Chase. The question here is the nature of this country that I have classified as a newspaper columnist with three leading media houses for about thirty years, as a failed state.
What will the ordinary citizen say when he hears about this court case. First, they will point to the status of the accused – she is a lawyer. Then they will wonder about the vanished paper trail. Then they will make this conclusion – these things would not have happened if it were a taxi driver, or mini-bus driver or some poor car owner. This does not mean Ms. Chase did anything wrong in relation to the missing documents.
There was nothing in the case to cause one to think did she. But whether she likes it or not, people will talk. People will say she was freed because she was a lawyer. They will not bother with the lack of evidence that led to her acquittal. They will carp on the fact that she is a lawyer. They may cite the case two weeks ago where the wash-bay boy at Texaco gas station on Vlissengen Road was jailed for three years for the same offence.
The concern every citizen should have in this court matter are the vanished papers including the mystery of a single, disappeared page. Carmichael’s testimony was stopped because a certain page in his multiple-paged statement that he composed during the time of the investigation could not be found. How can a single page go missing? I could understand the entire statement being misplaced.
Death by dangerous driving is a serious criminal charge. The trend for the past three years is a long jail term if found guilty. In fact, there has only been one case in recent times, of a fine. A pastor did not halt at a stop sign at Quamina and Camp Streets and killed a teacher and severely injured his daughter. Magistrate Mc Lennan imposed a $100,000 fine.
There have been three cases for the past two years where the relatives of the dead victims accepted compensation. In the case of the dead dance instructor because of compensation, all other charges were withdrawn including being an unlicensed driver without insurance (for details, see my column of Wednesday, April 12, 2017 with the heading, “Magistrates Fabayo Azore and Ann McLennan and the price of life.”
In this country when one refers to the price of life, one must analyse whose life we are talking about. I have lived my entire existence in this country except for study abroad. I know Guyana. I live here and I study the territory. Life is very cheap here. You are poor, you die at the Georgetown Hospital. You are poor, you go to jail.
Excuse me! I forgot! Which nations Trump referred to as shithole countries?
LISTEN HOW JAGDEO WILL MAKE ALL GUYANESE RICH!!!
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