FREDDIE KISSOON COLUMN
The police and the magistrates: Do they deserve admiration?
Kaieteur News, 4 August 2007
You can write two columns per day if as a social commentator you visit
the magistrates' courts around Guyana. Controversial magistrates in
this country are easier to find than mangoes when that fruit is in
season.
This writer, over the past ten years or more, has had cause to use his
Kaieteur News page and the letter sections of both independent dailies,
KN and SN (although, former UG scientist, Dr. Anand Daljeet of Canada
is contending that both of these papers are no longer independent as
they should be- see his mail in yesterday's SN) to question decisions
in the magistrate courts that were not only manifestly unjust, but
bizarre and incomprehensible.
I once wrote Justice Aubrey Bishop, when he was Chief Justice, about
the conduct of Chief Magistrate, Paul Fung-a-Fat, who left the
judiciary in circumstances that are yet to be explained. Mr. Fung-a-Fat
resigned but the story around legal circles was that he was asked to.
For me, it was a victory for the image of small, poor Guyana when he
departed. But I was in for a shock.
Others came along and this page showed some attention on and criticism
of them. The list included Magistrates Juliet Holder-Allen (she was
asked to proceed on leave); Bertlyn Reynolds (who left after a
controversy that caused judicial authorities to part company with her);
Cecil Sullivan (who slammed his office door in my face in his court
after telling me that he was a very religious person – after that
incident I stopped believing in God); Oscar Parvatan.
Magistrate Gilhuys was the big surprise for me. I failed to see the
logic of him denying bail to five dancers in a Brazilian private club
on Robb Street after the police foolishly barged into the place and
arrested the women for nudity.
This world has so many contradictions that if you study them they are
bound to send you crazy. Imagine Holland, a country of 16,000 square
miles compared to Guyana's 83,000, and millions of times richer, has
legalised prostitution.
So there you are looking for nocturnal pleasure in Amsterdam and a
naked woman of the night appears in a window. And all of that is legal!
But in dirt-poor Guyana where violent robbers can go hunting and have
the police paralysed for hours while they attack their victims, the
police can find time to invade strip joints.
Well I guess when a country's police force is intimidated by marauding
gunmen the members have to do something to keep themselves busy.
I wrote three articles against what the police did at that strip joint
and against Magistrate Gilhuys's decision. I told Mr. Watts, the
officer who ordered the raid, that he was wrong. I met the magistrate
and I expressed my disagreement with his denial of bail.
Police action and magistrates' decisions should come under sharp focus
by the media in this country because so much that emanates from these
two institutions cannot withstand logical thinking. Of course this
should never be taken to mean that they are not erudite magistrates and
learned police officers, both of whom should be commended for upholding
professional standards in Guyana.
There are those however, that the press should zero in on. My reading
of the social situation in Guyana reveals that the police are never
tardy when it comes to investigating fraud at large commercial
entities. Once the police are summoned, charges are laid within two
days time. The charges are always about ten or twelve in numbers.
I remember a few months back, the bond of Toolsie Persaud Company on
Lombard Street was invaded by burglars who came from the Demerara
River. Within one week, suspects were held.
A businesswoman who had a jewelry store in Stabroek Market and on Pike
Street, Kitty, was shot dead in front of her home as her husband exited
the car. The police took a statement from the husband one month after
the incident. And this was only done after a letter of protest was
carried in the newspaper.
Let's return to Toolsie Persaud Company. A supervisor at the company
was charged in June with four counts of fraud. Then in July he was
slapped with ten more. Then the police prosecutor informed Magistrate
Melissa Robertson-Ogle that 19 more charges are awaiting the accused.
This is a burst of energy from the Guyana Police Force that you seldom
see. This man will face 33 charges for allegedly stealing from Toolsie
Persaud. Magistrate Robertson-Ogle put the man on $5 million bail.
Sounds farcical and perhaps it is. I don't know if the magistrate
thinks that by not refusing bail, her decision would not be subject to
analysis by the media. But in putting the gentleman on $5 million she
was in effect denying bail. Why should such a sum be placed on the
accused for a non-violent crime?
This court case involving Toolsie Persaud Ltd provides the commentator
with an opportunity to highlight the way the Guyana Revenue Authority
(GRA) operates. The Commissioner-General of the GRA, Mr. Khurshid
Sattaur, told the press that the files for Toolsie Persaud are missing
from the GRA cabinets. This is in the midst of a controversy involving
a claim for over $200 million in consumption tax that Mr. Sattaur said
Mr. Persaud owes. That was the figure Mr. Sattaur gave to the press.
The public has not been told anything since.
Khurshid Sattaur is not the type to shy away from speaking to the
press. Yet to date, the nation knows nothing about the direction this
investigation is going. When commentators call this land a banana
republic, the people who run the country get into rage and call the
press all sorts of names. I was recently called a sleaze ball.
We are told that the bad publicity Guyana gets from its own press is
used by other nations to mistreat Guyanese. But if we are a banana
republic then we are such. If we are a failed state, then we are such.
The press has to do its work. If while doing our job we discover that
our country is run like a cowboy town, we must have the courage to say
so.
There is a claim by the revenue authorities that one of Guyana's
leading commercial operations owes the state over $200 million in
taxes. While the dispute is going on, the files go missing. Now the
question is; are the files missing or were the files stolen.
Either way, we the people of Guyana are owed an explanation. Don't wait
for one. You won't get it. In a failed state, the authorities don't owe
the nation anything at all. This is the way banana republics operate.
I would suggest to that supervisor that he applies to the High Court
and ask the court to reduce Mrs. Robertson-Ogle's fantastic sum of $5
million to $5,000.
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