No justice for Khajeel Mais
“Laws are like spider’s webs which, if anything small falls into them, they ensnare it, but large things break through and escape.” Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. – Solon, 3rd Century AD VENTS OVER the past week were dominated by what has become known as the ‘X6 killer trial’. Five years ago, a schoolboy was killed by a bullet to his head while he was in a taxi that had just hit an expensive vehicle.
The trial was over in five days, and the alleged killer found not guilty. The reason given for this verdict was that the critical witness had changed his testimony. And that’s that.
Long before this matter came to trial, many had predicted this outcome. And the police – busy as they are – seemed to have missed all the useful clues that were on everybody’s lips. In spite of this accurate prediction of the outcome, the nation erupted with anger at the verdict.
There is a claim that we only express outrage for a few days, then we forget the incident. This is not quite true. We stop talking but – unbeknown to us, even – there is a silent, subliminal deposit to that deepening sense of cynicism that lies dormant before it becomes dangerous.
Napoleon I of France is remembered by most as a military genius. But his genius extended well beyond the battlefield. He is responsible for the Napoleonic Code, which has influenced legal systems in more than 70 countries. Indeed, that code is regarded as one of the few documents that has influenced the whole world.
Napoleon had a growing concern that his countrymen were forgetting the concerns that sparked the revolution just over two decades before. So concerned was he that he summoned the members of the Council of State on March 12, 1803 – a Saturday – and among the warnings he gave were these words: “Il ne suffit pas pour etre juste de faire le bien, il faut encore que les administres soient convaicus.” Roughly translated, that means: “To be just is not simply doing right, the governed must be convinced that it is right.”
There is a deep cynicism among our people that is now firmly baked into the national psyche. It stems from the conviction that justice is for ‘other people’ and determined by colour, car, castle and cash – as little as possible of the first, and the others in abundance. Whenever these travesties occur and we get restive, legal luminaries are put on the airwaves. They use obfuscatory lingo in which anything seems to mean everything or maybe nothing if that is what is required. And that’s that.
EPatrick Powell has been freed in the Khajeel Mais murder case.
I would like to look at this The request by the police ‘passed’ an IMF ‘test’. With the event through the eyes of an for the firearm was denied. ‘passing’ of each test comes a ordinary Jamaican – not initiated Five years later, the trial more severe impoverishment of in law or logic. starts, the taxi driver takes the the nation as critical programmes
According to the mother of oath, takes the stand and denies in education, health the deceased child, she took him that he ever gave a second statement, and security have to be reduced to a taxi stand. The driver of the denies that he knows the to bare bones in order to pay taxi he took lived in his neighbourhood accused or the dead boy’s family, these debts. and knew his family. accuses the police of lying, the Those are easy to see. But
The driver claims that the taxi accused is set free, and everybody what is less visible are losses to hit a car and shortly, thereafter, goes home. And that’s the foundations of our democracy. bullets were fired into the cab that!!
This, unfortunately, is the outcome and one hit this child in his the society has come to head. He drove to the Constant
expect in matters concerning Spring Police Station, where the
certain persons in this society. police decided to drive the child
Justice Minister Delroy Chuck to hospital. They passed has been making some positive Andrews Memorial and Medical noises. And none but the architects Associates hospitals – two of of mischief would expect the best hospitals we have – and this new Government to reverse journeyed all the way across this generations-old problem in town to the Kingston Public a few months. Nor should we be Hospital – the most overcrowded so hard on previous regimes. and understaffed hospital we have. Not surprisingly, the child died.
NOT TRUTHFUL
According to the director public prosecutions, the taxi driver gave a statement in which he claimed he saw nothing that could be helpful. On another occasion, he returned to the police station to say that the first statement was not truthful and he gave a second statement claiming that he knew the shooter and his family and gave details to substantiate his claims.
Because of the circumstances of the case, the alleged killer’s gun was critical to the investigation.
COLLECT DEBTS
Generations ago, neo-colonialists using aliases like International Monetary Fund and World Bank held the government in a chokehold and force-fed a fundamentally flawed development system. The real objective was to collect debts we could not repay, and using the sophisticated tool of devaluation, buy our goods as cheaply as possible.
For years, politicians have been stepping over the wretched, broken bodies of our homeless brothers and sisters at Justice Square (don’t laugh) on their way to Gorgon House to proudly announce that they have Justice is one of the main casualties we don’t immediately recognise.
More than 40 years ago, I worked at the Family Court. I was shocked to observe that the judge had a pen in her hand recording, longhand, the details of each case. That unbelievably inefficient waste of time continues today and typifies the present justice arrangements. It is virtually impossible to deal with the backlog of cases that are awaiting trial.
Witnesses are dead or gone away. Victims have given up, as they have no more money for legal fees. Others have chosen more direct and violent means of settling grievances, as dons have proven to be far more effective than the country’s justice and security arrangements. Justice after five years is no longer justice.
So we end up with what we see last week. The key witness can tell the police one thing and the court another under oath. Either he is lying to the police or the court. But there are no consequences. This is a gun crime and the alleged killer has a gun. But he has failed to hand it over, and there are no consequences.
How is this system of laws helping us? Because if the law cannot punish certain groups in our society, it cannot persuade persons in those groups to respect the law. That is why Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Abbe Arnold, on May 27, 1789, said, in part, “The execution of the law is more important than the making of them.”
The vulnerable in the society are growing at an alarming rate. From Agana Barrett to Armadale to the hapless, hopeless children of dead and incarcerated parents, to the elderly the poor and the mentally challenged. One would have to be haughty and contemptuous of history to ignore the explosive consequences that face our nation if we ignore the welfare of the weakest.
We cannot continue to hand out not-guilty verdicts for these egregious crimes. For if no one is guilty, everyone is responsible.