Daniel ThwaitesTHE JUDGMENT by the Privy Council amounts to judicial legislation over the affairs of the island by non-elected members of British House of Lords. As much is said by Lord Hoffman in his dissenting judgment from the mounds of verbiage offered by the majority.
The powerful and cogent dissent makes it plain that the questions before the Privy Council had been "considered and answered in recent decisions". Hence clear precedent should have dictated the result. But instead the Law Lords gave the opposite result on all the issues before them, having mysteriously, conveniently and recently changed their minds.
As a result of the judgment, six murderers have had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment and the clear intention and purpose of the Jamaican law has been frustrated.
In the celebrated case of Neville Lewis who murdered Vic Higgs, all the evidence suggests that Lewis hijacked Higgs and easily overcame any resistance he might have offered. Lewis was not alone. So Higgs was outnumbered by younger men who could easily have taken his belongings and spared his life. But they viciously tortured and killed the man. They bound him with barbed wire, tried to gag and suffocate him, slammed the trunk of his car on his neck, and eventually dumped him into the mudlake, thereby basically depriving the family of a body for decent burial.
Three issues were raised at the Privy Council.
One had to do with whether the body which makes a recommendation to the Governor-General (after all local appeals have been exhausted) about the prerogative of mercy is bound to disclose information it has to the convict. Another was whether the government has to wait on the ruling by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights before carrying out the judgments of the Court.
Doctrinal
disposition
The third was whether the carrying out of the sentence can itself become unlawful because the convict has been detained in sub-standard conditions.
Hoffmann warns, correctly, that if the Privy Council "feels able to depart from a previous decision simply because its members on a given occasion have a "doctrinal disposition to come out differently", the rule of law itself will be damaged and there will be no stability in the administration of justice in the Caribbean. Can there be any doubt that a "doctrinal disposition to come out differently", one that is patently at odds with the considered views of the vast majority of citizens in the Caribbean, is driving the decision in this case?
But even as we remember poor Mr. Higgs, who was actually dumped in the mud-lake, we should also note the recent developments related to the Montego Bay Street People who were dumped near another mud-lake at Lovely Point. The report from the Commission of Enquiry notes that "each day the proceedings attracted the attendance of varying numbers of members of the public".
It continues: "Several members of the news media were in constant attendance and they gave wide publicity to the day-to-day proceedings.
"We regret, however, that despite our repeated entreaty, their reports and those of other commentators were not always fair and accurate".
Despite that admonition, irresponsible responses to the Commission's findings abound. Mr. Seaga has once again jumped in ahead of Mr. Chuck, ostensibly the spokesman on these issues. Mr. Chuck, it is reported, is not amused, as disaffection with his Leader deepens and widens. Jamaicans for Justice appear deeply troubled that the 'incorrect' persons were blamed by the Commission.
The key point is to notice that the Commission (they pressed for) is being ridiculed because the facts discovered by it are not in keeping with the established prejudices.
These folk had already decided who was responsible, and the Commission was merely to ratify their hunches.
But the Commission dared to have its own mind.
In this context, the statement by the Jamaica Baptist Union is timely and courageous. It takes gumption to buck the holier that thou ranting, but they have correctly insisted that the integrity of the commissioners should not become another side-casualty of the point-scoring. Indeed, it's a lovely point.
That unfortunate homeless persons were cruelly gathered, bound, transported and dumped at Lovely Point near the mud-lake is surely a shameful blot on our collective memory. The Jamaica Baptist Union, one can be certain, would never deny that. But they have opted to stand against those whose intemperate comments would do disservice to a just cause.
