Dawn Ritch, ContributorThis newspaper's editorial stated last week that "We have little doubt that Mr. Seaga has been treated unfairly in this matter... (the West Kingston Enquiry), "yet two or three of our editorials have maintained that the Opposition Leader should nevertheless have given evidence before it." This position raises all kinds of questions. Mr. Seaga's attorney-at-law was not being allowed unrestricted cross-examination by Justice Julius Isaac, chairman of the Enquiry. If this newspaper believes that Mr. Seaga was "treated unfairly", why wasn't the Chief Justice so persuaded when the former applied to him for leave to go to the Full Court to have the matter aired and determined?
The editorial also criticised the Opposition Leader for not appealing the decision of the Chief Justice, which it describes as "eminently appealable." To pursue the matter further in the courts would in my opinion, have been a proper waste of time. All the more so because none of the attorneys-at-law representing Mr. Seaga, Mr. Desmond McKenzie or the afflicted communities in West Kingston are being paid. It is a common sense reality that people who are not being paid to waste time invariably do not. Unlike the chairman of the Enquiry into West Kingston, Mr. Justice Julius Isaac, and the battery of counsel arrayed before him on behalf of the state.
Sleeping on the job
Anywhere a person is found sleeping on the job is grounds for instant dismissal. In Justice Isaac's case, one of the PNP lawyers weakly supplied on public radio that the chairman can rely upon the notes of evidence. So by sleeping from time to time, he hasn't missed anything.
By the same token, however, we could simply have mailed him the notes of evidence in Canada, and he need not have come at all. One of the things we would have hoped he'd be alert to by chairing a Commis-sion of Enquiry in Jamaica, was the demeanour of the witnesses. But his eyes have been closed, and his brain shut down. He was unconscious.
Thus Jamaica has the appearance of a Commission, but not the substance of one. Attorney-at-law and JLP Member of Parliament Mr. Abe Dabdoub cannot represent the interests of a client before an enquiry which refuses to have him cross-examine all the witnesses, and which restricts him to doing so only when his client's name is called. I feel that, to ask the Opposition Leader not only to give evidence, but follow up the matter in the courts is to ask him to become ensnared by appearance, and to become ensnared oneself. I am glad that he's chosen not to do so, because it would have made him equally ridiculous. An irresponsible fool rather than the statesman the Gleaner's editorial had hoped.
The editorial also went on to state, "Mr. Dabdoub is correct that the Act absolves from wrong-doing those who fail or refuse to comply with the requirement of a subpoena if there is sufficient cause . . ." It should be noted that only the Roman Catholic Church "absolves from wrong-doing", never the court. In this temporal world a thing is not illegal except by law. The law makes it illegal for a person to refuse to give evidence, without "sufficient cause". Mr. Seaga's grounds for "sufficient cause" is that he and his legal advisors believe that the chairman's conduct of the Commission displays bias against himself, the victims of violence, and in favour of the state, which is alleged to be the perpetrators of that violence. He steadfastly maintains that he is treated unfairly. Once there is "sufficient cause", there can be no illegality. Furthermore as far as I am concerned the issue of "wrong-doing" does not even arise.
Stupid
Long before the commissioners were even appointed a source well-connected to the upper-echelons of the PNP political directorate asked me confidentially to tell him why Mr. Seaga was so stupid. He said Seaga was always calling for Commissions of Enquiry, and this time he was sure to get one.
My source told me that Seaga would go to the general election answering the most outlandish allegations from a witness box, instead of a political platform. The act of setting up this Commission, he predicted, would lead to one long election campaign against the Jamaica Labour Party, but carried as news from the faithfully-reported proceedings of a Commission.
At the time, however, I didn't believe my source because he can be both cynical and paranoid. Now it seems he knew far more than I. First came the announcement by Prime Minister Patterson of Dr. Garnet Brown as one of the commissioners. Seaga objected to this appointment and the country uniformly responded with "There Seaga goes again, saying bad things about people". Then came the selection of Justice Julius Isaac as chairman, and thereby hung a long and controversial tale.
Does anyone believe that white Edward Seaga could have objected to a black Grenadian who had done well in Canada, and gotten away with it, even if P.J. Patterson had been minded to have a change of heart about this appointment?
The one time that Justice Isaac was interviewed on radio last week, he used the adjective "black" several times, as though being against him is being against black people's progress. His race has absolutely nothing to do with it, only his performance. And that has been sadly lacking. I don't happen to think it is progressive to sleep on the job, nor when awake to run a Commission of Enquiry with such an obvious state of bias.
