An interesting news item this week centred around Prime Minister Mia Mottley who continues to loom large on the local, regional and dare twe suggest the international stage? Mottley has attracted the ire of some in the legal community for suggestions made at the recent Regional Symposium: Violence As a Public Health Issue organized by CARICOM.
We need to start rotating judges and magistrates in the region to ensure that there is not the familiarity with counsel and other circumstances and things that people take for granted.
Mia Mottley
Who better than Mottley to understand some of the challenges our legal system continues to pose. She has been immersed in the moribund system for all of her life and if caught in an informal conversation after a stiff drink and a ‘smoke’ may admit she has been a contributor to the flawed system over the years.
Some will hear Mottley and be distracted by the red, others will pars the statement for what it is, a truism. We cannot continue to do the same thing and expect significant or transformative change. An efficient INDEPENDENT court system is essential to signal to citizens and civil society that upholding the rule of law is non negotiable. For too long John and Jane Citizen have retreated to being apathetic and cynical about how justice is dispensed in our region. Sadly the maxim that we are a country of laws has become nothing more than a cliché.
The blogmaster like many have become turned off by these lawyers who seize every opportunity to defend the status quo by shielding themselves under the cloak of legalese and ambiguous laws crafted by them- all the while basking in growing personal reputations of being defenders of law and order. The irony is that our once pristine societies are crumbling as these silly games are being engaged.
A gullible citizenry continues to be manipulated by our so called political and educated class. We cannot critique a public service that is inefficient, the unions will defend to protect its profit and loss. The same unions are unable to attract 10% of its membership to annual elections to vote for members to serve on the executive council. We cannot attack the banks for charging high fees because protection comes in the form back room agreements to invest in gilt edged securities. We cannot attack the teachers when it is known the system has morphed to one where the standard of a school is as good as its last principal – then again the same can be opined about the BLP and DLP, the two political parties have become as good as its political leader.
Woe betide the few who dare to speak even from the underground.
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