The Rule of Law

Saddam Hussein held ‘elections’ from time to time, as do other dictators.

Unsurprisingly the results usually show that 99.99% of the voters are in favour of the government.  There is usually no court system in these societies in which a claim that perhaps the 99.99% result was excessive can be contested.

Our Supreme Law is our Constitution.  This would rapidly become a pointless piece of paper if there was no impartial court to uphold it.  We are fortunate.  We do have such a court manned by well respected judges, who are able and willing impartially to enforce laws properly made in our Parliament.

That is the Rule of Law in our island.  If the judges are to carry out their work, they must be protected from victimisation, ridicule, intimidation and violence, whether that intimidation etc. comes from the Government, the Opposition or individuals.

I read in a statement of the Premier made on 23rd May:  ‘On Saturday evening (May 21st) the leaders of the Opposition Party, told its supporters at a Public Meeting in Church Ground that the High Court Judge has been colluding with other upstanding citizens to defraud the electoral system on Nevis….

The Leader of the Federal Opposition ... resorted to characterising the conduct of the Electoral Office as ‘corrupt’ and described the Office as ‘a den of iniquity’….  Additionally his colleague candidate … launched a vicious attack on the High Court Judge personally, suggesting that the Judge has been involved in ‘meetings’ with officials of my Party to choreograph biased outcomes in Court’.  A week later it appears that there has been no contradiction by the CCM.

I have read the grovelling apology made by Keith Scarborough.  He says that he deeply regrets having said that several persons (who he names) have met privately with the resident High Court Judge.  My comments, he says, were such that some have construed them to mean that there was something sinister or improper about any such meetings.  This is a pretty shallow apology.  The implication is that he was not suggesting that the named persons met with the Judge for any sinister or improper purpose, but rather that others might have mistakenly interpreted his remarks to mean exactly that.  However he does go on to say that his comments were completely without justification and that they were wrong and he accepts full responsibility for them.

If it is that he was, as the Premier states, alleging that the High Court Judge had been colluding with named citizens to defraud the electoral system on Nevis, then that is dreadful, defamatory and worst of all calculated to undermine our trust in our judiciary.  He says that his CCM Party has as its watchwords ‘decency’, ‘law and order’ and ‘integrity’.  To suggest that a Judge is colluding in a criminal conspiracy has nothing to do with decency or integrity and is an assault upon the impartial administration of justice.

Decency and integrity in Government are in part maintained through the Courts.  Therefore any attack on members of the Judiciary is a strike against decency and integrity.  Why did not the other speakers, there on the platform with Scarborough, that Saturday night, not immediately disassociate the C.C.M. from these remarks?  Many might be forgiven for thinking that in remaining silent the Party, adopted Mr. Scarborough’s allegations.  Although the apology says that the comments were not approved by the Party and are not representative of their views, there is no suggestion that anyone in the Party other than Scarborough is offering an apology for what he said on their platform.

The Opposition make a number of complaints about the conduct of the Electoral Office.  Perhaps the most potentially serious is the allegation that persons names have been removed from the voters’ lists without their consent, and that they have been denied a hearing before the Registration Officer to dispute the removal of their names, since they received notification of the hearing after the date appointed for that hearing.  This is a serious allegation, made more so by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition labelling the Electoral Office as ‘corrupt’.  Until the matter is taken to court and adjudicated upon it remains simply an allegation.  It may be true in whole or in part.  It may be baseless.  It may have been invented to seek political advantage.  We do not know.  No reasonable minded democrat can approve names being removed from the voters lists without said voters being given the chance to say why their names should remain.  I cannot believe, that upon Judicial Review a Judge would not order that the voter be given the opportunity of putting his case to the Registration Officer, if it was shown   that he had had no previous opportunity.  The Court is the appointed place, the only place where allegations can be tested, where evidence and credibility can be assessed and decisions binding upon the participants can be made.  Without the Rule of Law our democracy perishes and might becomes right.

Mr. Brantley says that he is taking the matter to ‘The People’s Court’ to the Court of Public Opinion.  This is a place where there are no rules of procedure, or evidence, no impartial trained judges to adjudicate and where the only ‘winner’ is he who shouts loudest and longest.  In truth, of course, there is no such thing in this country as ‘The People’s Court’.  It is rhetorical device used by a Party that may think it cannot win in the country’s genuine Courts, as it does not have a strong enough case.

To make an allegation that should properly be dealt with by the High Court into an election issue is not playing fair with the Court, the People , the Electoral Office or the Constitution.  Election issues should be based on the record of the respective parties in Government, their declared policies for the future and the credibility of those Parties and their leading members.  Mr. Scarborough in seeking to excuse his comments says that they were made ‘in the heat of the political platform’.  If he cannot control what he says when on that platform then he should not be on it.

Clearly, the best service Mr. Scarborough can provide to his CCM Party is to resign his candidacy so that they can start without him to try to show that they do actually respect the High Court, the guarantor of our voting system and the rule of law. 

Unfortunately this disrespect of and for the law is nothing new for CCM.

During their fourteen years in office they never sought Parliamentary approval as is required by the Constitution for annual appropriations. 

Appropriations is the word for Government spending over and above the amounts specified in the budget.  This occurred not occasionally but every single year.  In their arrogance they chose to disregard the law.  Those who vote for any person or Party that shows that it does not intend to support the independent Judiciary and the Courts whose function it is to protect our fundamental rights and freedoms and uphold the Constitution have only themselves to blame when they lose those rights and freedoms.  History shows that nations are destroyed economically when the rights of the people pertaining to property and person are lost, as happens when there is no Court with an independent Judiciary to offer protection.

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