Justice delayed is justice denied

ATTORNEY General and Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall, SC, made some thought-provoking utterances Tuesday while he was dealing with a gamut of other matters on his programme called ‘Issues in the News’.

Nandlall, speaking about the cases which were filed against the suspects involved in the March 2, 2020 elections fiasco, acknowledged that the public was getting impatient and wanted to be updated on progress of these cases filed or the lack of progress.

He said that he, understanding the impatience of the public, has already written to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Shalimar Ali-Hack to get updates from the special prosecutors’ team representing the interest of the State.

When this is finished, the AG said he would make the full report available so the public could be appraised of the status of those election cases.

Then, the Legal Affairs Minister declared that the matters were not within the things he could control. He said, to be exact, “I can’t answer for matters or things over which I have no control. I can’t direct how these are to be done…concluded or do them.”

Firstly, the public is not blaming the PPP Government for the slothfulness of these cases nor is the public doubtful that he, as the AG, is doing all that he can legally to effectively aid in the process to arrive at a successful trial.

So, the AG should breathe a sense of calmness and relief. The public knows that the government, the AG Chambers and the special prosecutors are again following the guidance of the court and criminal justice process.

Also, the public is grateful for the alacrity, thoroughness, and balanced approach with which the Presidential Commission of Inquiry conducted its affairs and investigations into the circumstances leading to Guyana’s elections fiasco in 2020.

The public is awaiting the findings and final report while they await justice in courts for many known infractions.

Secondly, now that the government is absolved from the blame for the slothfulness in bringing these cases and electoral matters to justice, the public must focus its attention on the Judiciary or the court system in place.

Although parts of the public would blame the court system for the delay in arriving at justice, other parts are not going to be so fast in handing down or deciding judgment.

The latter section of the populace is going to say the systems and steps to arrive at judgment must be allowed to work and take the time it needs. That is, it must not be forced and every party must be afforded the opportunity to defend or place their case before the court.

So, it is not the court but the systems it utilises to arrive at justice.

On the other hand, while the other section of the public will agree with that argument, they would say it is the people who are holding up these systems and are creating the blockage of smooth justice in these cases using their knowledge of the law to cause undue delays or deferrals.

It matters not how much evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, because these cases can go on for months or even years until they are brought to an end by either party.

So, it is still the judiciary that is taking the fall or the blame. The Chancellor, Chief Justice, judicial officers of the courts, and the Judicial Service Commission (when it is convened) must look at these cases and the number of matters that are each day being stymied and held up or delayed because of things that are impeding the smooth and effective flow towards the dispensation of swift and solid justice.

Thirdly, the public is concerned and devastated, and rightly so, because Guyanese still have not received justice for the dastard and blatant attempt to steal this country’s democracy and freedoms.

The AG and PPP, respectfully, may have lived through it but the Guyanese public suffered through the ordeal and anguish of not knowing which way the seat of government would steer until it was clear that the APNU/AFC was not going to get their sticky hands on power through the backdoor.

For those Guyanese who knew the PPP/C won, the suffering and sacrifice made were too great for there to be no justice or slow justice.

After all, Guyana could have been in the clutches of being referred to as a Pariah State relegated to complete darkness and anarchy.

Finally, today, the Guyanese public cannot turn a blind eye to this insult and must call for speediness in the trial of the electoral cases brought by the PPP Government and the State of Guyana against the miscreants and opposition politicians who were allegedly intimately involved in attempted rigging and electoral shenanigans.

The Judiciary must get its act together before the end of this year. The public expects it to jail or effectively prosecute those it finds guilty of seeking to derail the will of the people.

It is domestic terrorism in some parts of the world to attempt to steal the ballot of people but here we have a bold-faced and cunning opposition leader, Aubrey Norton, who would continue to spew the narrative that he would rather Guyana be destroyed or deal with the consequences that followed, once the PPP was not afforded its elected right to govern.

It cannot be business as usual and as the famous quote by Winston Churchill says, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Something must be done because justice delayed, is indeed, justice denied!

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