The Manicou Report

*First of all I want to apologise for my lack of blogging over the past weeks. I’ve been working on my template which has been fighting me back at every step. I’m not done yet, but at least I have a better sidebar to show for it.

Sat Sharma

The truth is I don’t know whether the Chief Justice is guilty or innocent. I find myself these days not caring very much about it either. I do, however, find myself feeling very tense about the whole situation. It doesn’t help that the people embroiled in this matter and those who are trying to become embroiled don’t instil any confidence in me. I don’t know the Chief Justice from Adam. He’s not my uncle, my lawyer or my next door neighbour. In Trinidad however, that doesn’t disqualify anyone from offering a half-baked, uninformed opinion on what he should do. Right now, everybody and their barber is an expert on the criminal justice. And my question is why?

The only two people who really know all the facts of this case are Chief Magistrate Sherman Mc Nichols and the Chief Justice himself. As far as I’m concerned, everybody else is a day late and a dollar short. All the Johnny-come-lately experts are pitting one man’s word against another and deciding for themselves what is truth, irregardless of due process. But in Trinidad, dat eh stopping nobody. Who doh say he should resign, say the Government persecuting him. Meanwhile, I sit here jealous of their telepathic abilities. Honestly, I’m in awe. There is no “wait and see”, there’s no “due course”. I guess we should thank Mr. Patrick “resign or be charged” Manning for that.

As know the facts of the case, but the very last thing I call for is for the CJ to resign - unless of course he knows that he is guilty. All the people who are saying, “yeah he should resign, he making the office look bad” probably haven’t stopped to consider the possibility that the man may be innocent. Resign for what? The man hasn’t been convicted of any crime. What if he were to go to court only to be found innocent? Then what? Who’s going to give him his job back? Are those same people going to be so vociferous in calling for him to be reinstated? Unlikely.

And of course there are the polar opposites to those mentioned before who say that he is being persecuted and the Government should back off him, which is equally as asinine. A few weeks ago I accused another Trinidadian blogger of jumping to conclusions and alluded that she was allowing race to cloud her thinking. Apparently she didn’t see it that way and subsequently (or not) she chose to delete her bog or at least move it to somewhere where rational thinking wasn’t required. I wish she had stayed around to duke it out with me. I could always use a good argument. In the blogosphere you have to be prepared to defend what you say and well, as it turns out, not every position is tenable. Ah well.

Basdeo Panday

Joining the call to stop the alleged persecution of the Chief Justice is none other but the Pied Piper himself, Basdeo Panday. In case you haven’t read the Internet Express this morning, Mr. Panday is in pre-conviction blabber-mouth form. When asked what he thought of the President’s statement, said he, “His speech was a shame and a disgrace”. (Wow). In any case, its hard to recall anyone ever ripping into a president the way Mr. Panday has. But wait, there’s more. The Express reports:

Asked what he thought Richards should have done, Panday said he (Richard’s) should have kept his “mouth shut in the first place”.

Panday said if Richards wanted to say something, then he should have met with Prime Minister Patrick Manning and told him to stop the persecution of Chief Justice Sat Sharma.

He said the Government was trying to attack the public justice system in a process that “reeks of racism”…

…He noted though, that Richards was “part and parcel” of the Government that wants to control the judiciary, as they have done with respect to the police force.

Comissioner Trevor Paul

By the way, this comes from the man who knows disgrace. So all you nay sayers out there who think Mr. Panday is getting on his high horse, you should shut your mouth too. Mr. Panday knows everything there is to know about disgrace. He’s gone from Prime Minister to jailbird-on-bail. Mr. Panday is even an expert on keeping one’s mouth shut. Who else but Mr. Panday knows how much better it is to keep his mouth shut that to be successfully sued for libel? Don’t hold back Mr. Panday. Tell us how you really feel.

While this doesn’t “reek” of racism, it does reek of Mr. Panday attempting to re-unite the UNC. What bothers me most about that statement (without surprising me) is how this matter has turned into an issue of race. In Trinidadian politics, the easiest way to rally supporters is to insist that there are some people who hate them, but you are not one of them. It has worked before and I guess it can work again.

Even though I have no real opinion on the CJ’s guilt or innocence, there are some things that bother me, though. Call them “nagging questions” if you will.

1. I am bothered by the gusto with which the Government is tackling this issue. If they decided to tackle vagrancy, crime, the drug scourge and infrastructure problems with the same zeal, man, Trinidad would be a much nicer place. Just imagine how it would be if the Police Commissioner launched a no-holds-barred offensive against crime. Could you imagine what our crime rate would be like now? Imagine if the Commissioner were to say that there was “nothing that could stop him” from doing his duty to rid Trinidad and Tobago of crime and drugs. I get goose bumps thinking about it. By the way, did you know the T&T Police Service has a website?

2. If the Chief Magistrate is innocent, why is he afraid of going before the very court that he presides over. Is he saying that the court is inherently corrupt and there is no way that he can get a fair trial? This is his court. Why is he reluctant to be tried in it? Surely he doesn’t think that injunctions are going to make the whole issue just disappear. If he’s afraid, then what about the average man in the streets? If I were an innocent man being wrongfully accused, I would dust of my calculator and invite my lawyer over for dinner so he could help me calculate damages. All in all it sounds like a bad version of The Minority Report

At the end of it all I just wish that the CJ submits himself to the course of justice just like everyone else sooner or later has to. If he’s innocent, then I hope he fights tooth and nail to expose his oppressors, and if he’s guilty, well….