EARLIER in the week, one of our readers penned a letter to this newspaper after reading about a case in which a magistrate freed a driver, charged with vehicular homicide, because the vehicle he was driving while intoxicated, struck and killed someone.

The case ended up in court and during the court proceedings, the accused apparently, according to the letter-writer and reports in sections of the media, brandished a cheque book and told the judge that he had reached a $3 million compensation agreement with the widow of the man whose death he was accused of causing.
The letter-writer made the point that, upon seeing the cheque book and learning of the “settlement” agreement, the magistrate dismissed the case.
Now if this happened exactly as has been reported, then I’m sure any other reasonable person would draw the same conclusion: that this is indeed a case of “cheque book justice”.
In the letter that he wrote to the Chronicle, the writer asks a few pointed questions like: “What happens to the drunk driver who has no cheque book?” and, “Would he be forced to do jail time?”
These are uncomfortable yet necessary questions to ask ourselves. This newspaper has carried numerous reports of car accidents, many of which have been caused by drivers who appeared to be inebriated, yet often those individuals appeared to have some influence over the police who do not take the steps we expect them to take, such as detaining the driver and administering a sobriety test. Too often these drivers are simply let go.
I remember the heart-breaking story of the little girl who was recently killed, again by a suspected drunk driver, and in that case too, like so many others, the driver called someone who whisked him away. When the police arrived after some time, they did not offer much sympathy to the grieving family. They were instead castigated for supposedly “telling the police how to do their job.”
The victims of this injustice are mostly poor people across all ethnic groups, while the perpetrators are often well-off individuals who can afford to dip into their pockets and take out some change to pacify those whose lives they often destroyed. Let’s face it, the compensation amounts offered by the accused to their victims can never be described as “fair.” In the first instance, a life is priceless, because no amount of money is enough to compensate for a life lost. However, money can certainly help those who remained behind to move on, especially if the person killed was a breadwinner and those who are left behind depended on that person. In that case, money can certainly help, but the amounts of money offered to victims of car accidents that are often caused by drunk drivers can, at best, be described as insulting. Those who accept it often do so because they know that if they turn that Gy$1 million or Gy$3 million down, they may end up with nothing, plus the perpetrator is more likely than not to get away.
It is well known that the criminal lawyers in Guyana are more skilled and crafty than the prosecutors. So, even if the accused is brought to court, chances are that he or she will be able to beat the system. So, when the victims are approached by the perpetrators of a crime with a compensation offer, they are almost always at a disadvantage. And the accused knows it. That is why they offer such pittances as compensation, because they know they have other options.
Changing this will require changes on several levels, which include institutional changes as well as changes in mentality, and here’s why:as long as there are people in need of money, including those officials responsible for the administration of justice, there will be people, including perpetrators of serious crimes, who will offer money to those officials in exchange for circumventing the course of justice.
So the question is: have we become a “cheque book justice” society?