THE EDITOR, Sir:
THE RECENT decision by government to levy a tax on legal fees paid by clients to attorneys in criminal cases has in effect completed the process of isolating the poor, oppressed and downtrodden masses from access to justice, and reserving justice exclusively for the rich. Incidentally, effective September 1, 2003 an indirect tax is now being applied directly i.e. A consumption tax is now being deducted from income, with the application of the General Consumption Tax (GCT) on income from gaming.
If justice is viewed as fairness, it must produce a system which gives an individual his/her due regardless of whether that individual is classified among the haves or have-nots. Through regulatory mandates the government has redefined individual rights, essentially pulling it back to being reducible to property rights. The government has in effect offered poor black Jamaicans a rungless ladder on which to clamber out of the mire of injustice.
After more than 14 years of uninterrupted expansion, governmental institutions now command increasingly little support among the public that they are designed to serve. The alienation has become so deep to the extent that the government is out of touch with the prevailing tendencies within the public sphere. Against this background we must rethink the role of government with respect to the state and civil society. A critical question to be addressed is: Is government our master or servant?
Currently people feel they are paying more for government but getting less. Much of government now seems afflicted with a bureaucratic administration and technocratic public sector concerned for little but their own perpetuation. The notion that government is responsible for protecting the people from adversity no longer prevails. Legislative, bureaucratic and judicial decision-making now determine the nature of essential elements of the public realm as opposed to the more deliberative, representative and consensus-based democratic process.
I am, etc.,
MAURICE W. DRYSDALE
Alexander Park
Lyssons P.O.
St. Thomas
