Wheels of justice moving too slowly in Guyana

What is the cause – blindness?

JUSTICE is blind, as the saying goes, and as the statute of justice with the scales is blind-folded, but blindness is not the cause of the slow ruling of the wheels of justice in this country.

When Justice Brassington Reynolds was confronted with obstacles last Friday that caused him to remove a murder case from list and direct the Prosecution to make sure the matter is first on the list for next session (next year) the judge noted that the wheels of justice were moving too slowly.

Reacting to the last observation, Attorney-at-law, Mr. Huckumchand, whose client had to suffer since the accused charged jointly had to remain until the next sessions, jokingly told the judge, “the lady is so blind that she cannot see. ”

However, in a more serious note, the lawyer agreed with the judge that the time set for the case to be brought back would give the accused or the authorities time to appoint counsel for the unrepresented three murder accused. That delay Mr. Huckumchand said, was most desirable. Judge Brassington Reynolds observed on last Friday that the wheels of justice were moving too slowly and left the cause to be determined by those spectators who obviously knew or did not know the reason.

The majority of spectators who learnt that justice is blind, also knew that blindness was not the cause of the slow rolling of the wheels of justice and that the real reason was due to the fact that the various agencies were not in control of operations that would enable the cases fixed for trial to be able to go ahead without obstacles of one kind or another.
The obstacles include the listing and setting of cases to be tried without making sure that witnesses were available, that the murder accused listed for trial are represented by counsel, and that cases which require lengthy voir dires should be distinguished before court day.

Because of these and other failures, cases are being left untried and day by day the list of unheard cases are becoming greater and greater.

So slow is the pace of the wheels of justice that since the beginning of the October Criminal Sessions in Demerara, the two judges, Mr. James Bovell-Drakes and Mr. Brassington Reynolds have only been able to complete a total of five cases between them.

These include the Mark Samuels murder trial- Samuels was sentenced to death; Roxanne Daniels murder case – Daniels was sentenced to seven years for manslaughter; Joanna Denhai murder trial – that trial was aborted’;Patrick Narine Carnal Knowledge case- Narine was found guilty, awaiting probation report; Mahendra Persaud murder trial – Persaud was sentenced to 15 years for manslaughter.

At present Justice James Bovell-Drakes is still conducting a vloir dire ( a trial within a trial) to determine the admissibility of a magisterial document in the Abubakir, Abdel Bari and Atta Sankar Conspiracy to defraud case.

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