Lawyers, as a rule, do not wish others to judge them. Lawyers and judicial personnel treat the legal system as their domain or, to put it crudely, as their property. They constantly assume that the legal system exists primarily for their benefit.” So confessed the lawyer in Kenny Anthony in a 2002 address to the graduating class of the Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica, when he cited this riveting line by the American writer, poet and dramatist John Jay Chapman: “The world of politics is always 20 years behind the world of thought.”
The politician in Kenny Anthony would have none of that. “I believe Chapman got it wrong,” he bellowed before graduating lawyers (as if Chapman in his time could’ve conceived of our nightmare circumstances), “particularly where legal matters are concerned. In my experience, the two institutions that are most resistant to change of any kind are the police service and the judiciary . . . Politicians are way ahead of the judicial and legal intelligentsia in matters of legal and police reform.”
Do I sniff in the air a non sequitur? Or do I smell a straw-man argument being burned down by its maker? Where in Chapman’s statement is the smallest reference to “institutions most resistant to change?” Or, for that matter, obstinacy? Might Chapman’s famous observation be more related to the universal politician’s intellect? His ability to think on his feet? Or did he mean simply to state the obvious? That most politicians are dumb. Slow-witted!
The especially cynical (mark me guilty) may well conclude Saint Lucia’s then prime minister had in mind his own personal history when he addressed those law students in Jamaica. More appropriate to the occasion might’ve been Chapman’s words spoken in 1912, on the first anniversary of the death of Zachariah Walker, a black steel-mill worker in Coatesville, Philadelphia.
On the historic occasion the chronicler had not only referred to the lynching of Zach Walker as “one of the most dreadful crimes in history” but he had also added: “The failure of the prosecution in this case, in all such cases, is only proof of the magnitude of the guilt, and of the fact that everyone shares in it. As I read the newspaper accounts of the scene enacted here in Coatesville a year ago, I seemed to get a glimpse into the unconscious soul of this country. I seemed to be looking into the heart of a criminal. The reason slavery is wrong is that it is cruel and makes men cruel and leaves them cruel. A nation cannot take a course of inhuman crime for three hundred years and then suddenly throw off the effects of it.”
Another interesting tidbit about John Jay Chapman, who died in 1933: In 1887 he assaulted a man for insulting his then girlfriend Minna Timmins, whom he married two years later. He punished himself for this act by putting his left hand into a fire. It was so badly burned he had to have it amputated. It’s not at all difficult to guess why Kenny Anthony—who has never been particularly famous for acknowledging his misjudgments—would recall Chapman only so he might disagree with one of his best known observations. But then he leaves no room for possible misinterpretation when unambiguously Anthony confirms lawyers do not take kindly to being judged . . . that they tend to see the legal system as their property . . . that politicians are way ahead of the judicial intelligentsia “when it comes to legal and police reform.”
If Kenny Anthony is anything like the other lawyers to whom he referred in his address at the Norman Manley Law School graduation (recorded in his book At the Rainbow’s Edge), that would certainly explain his relationship as prime minister with the RSLPF, especially in the years since 2011. Also his attitude toward the office of the DPP, and his neglect of the justice system as a whole. It goes without saying the prime ministers that followed him were doomed to inherit the fall-out.
Upon returning to office in 2011, the prime minister undertook to “make improvements at the level of the police force, the office of the director of public prosecutions, the justice system and the social sectors.” He had been in office a little over a year when he announced to the world that the U.S. State Department was unhappy with the decision by local authorities that the fatal shootings of twelve individuals by members of the RSLPF was “not unlawful.” He confirmed rumors of the existence of a police “hit list” by saying: “I recall that in opposition I had seen such a list.” As for the State Department’s dissatisfaction, he said: “The United States believes it has credible evidence that officers of the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force committed gross violations of human rights.”
Moreover: “Since the United States has decided to impose sanctions on members of the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force, then it is reasonably clear that it does not have confidence in the outcome of the inquests to bring those responsible for the killings to justice . . . Clearly too, the presumption seems to be that the killings were unlawful.”
Additionally: “It is undeniable that it is in our vital interest to maintain close ties of cooperation with the United States in security matters.” To help bring resolution to this “unhappy episode,” the prime minister announced, the government had invited IMPACS to identify three senior investigators from the region “to investigate the so-called extra-judicial killings.” They would be required to evaluate all the available evidence and determine whether or not these matters warranted further action.
The prime minister also promised that the findings of the IMPACS investigation “are lawfully transmitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions”—whose office up to this point was not involved. The DPP’s office was brought into the fuzzy picture on 7 March 2015, after the prime minister had read out on TV most of the IMPACS report, including pointed allegations, among them that crime in Saint Lucia was facilitated by local businessmen, politicians and police officers. Also that key evidence was in fact planted at staged crime scenes.
After an MP publicly took the DPP to task for, as he put it, sitting on the report passed on to her after its public reading by the prime minister, the DPP convened a press conference at which she made her own shocking revelations: What was presented to her was “not accompanied by a cover note.” She was given no related time frame, busy with other important matters as she was. No formal inquiry was made of her in relation to the report. Meanwhile it was being politicized in the public arena. If the attorney general or any other government official considered the report of “such high national and international importance,” why then was there never an inquiry addressed to her?
Moreover, the Police Complaints Act required that investigators must transmit “all evidence to the Director of Public Prosecutions.” Why wasn’t this done? The DPP claimed she spoke to the attorney general about the IMPACS matter and she indicated she had no idea who had the evidence supportive of the allegations contained in the report.
The prime minister, for his part, announced that if the DPP was dissatisfied with what had been passed on to her, all she had to do was talk with him about it. So much for the separation of powers earlier cited by the prime minister himself in a broadcast. In an interview with state-employed Shelton Daniel soon after the DPP’s press conference, the justice minister explained the missing witness statements and other evidentiary matters this way: “It would be highly improper and prejudicial to have any such matters in a report of this kind.”
Nearly five years later there has been little movement with regard to the IMPACS investigation initiated by Kenny Anthony when he was prime minister. The current DPP, as well as the justice minister, speak in tongues whenever questioned by reporters. The reason is clear, at least to several lawyers and politicians I talked with. What they say implies the DPP’s hands are tied, with his office and the government stuck between a rock and a harder place.
Meanwhile, throughout the intervening years the former prime minister has more than once publicly stated “the police are in denial.” Not all, however. Former commissioner Vernon Francois, who “voluntarily” retired after he was twice told by the Public Service Commission to hang it up or else, has written a book that speaks to the IMPACS matter. The author has not been kind to the former prime minister when it comes to his handling of the matter.
As I write it is being announced that the prime minister is scheduled to deliver his New Year’s address tomorrow (Sunday). Will he have something useful to say about the over-burdened and besieged police force that includes a possible IMPACS resolution? Will he comment on the present status of Grynberg, keeping in mind recent news concerning oil in Guyana?
It is unlikely the House opposition leader will broach the mentioned two subjects. While he has promised there will be no related investigations under his watch, he has nevertheless announced his intention, if he should make it to the prime minister’s chair between now and 2021, to enact an anti-corruption law that will conceivably achieve what existing integrity-in-office legislation has obviously not. Somewhat perplexing is that shortly after his announcement the opposition leader publicly welcomed to his flock the only government minister to be declared guilty of office abuse. His history as an optometrist in Canada and elsewhere is, to say the least, not flattering—at any rate as served up by Wikipedia.
I should add that it was Kenny Anthony, as leader of the opposition, who had successfully charged Keith Mondesir, in private life the owner of a small hotel, with receiving from cabinet colleagues concessions to which he was not entitled. At the time it was the Labour Party’s view that Mondesir’s character flaws rendered him altogether unfit for office. It remains to be seen whether the cited attitudinal change in the party leaders, then and now, is shared by the majority of the electorate—and what might be Mondesir’s disposition to the proposed anti-corruption legislation.
And now, dear reader, are you thinking, as I am, about John Jay Chapman’s assessment of the worlds of politics and thought?
