Exactly why the government will not condemn the promotion of two police officers who are known to have been guilty of the torture of a boy is extremely puzzling. As the SN editorial on the subject of Monday, January 26, said, the two should have been dismissed from the Guyana Police Force in the first instance. After all, there was no doubt about the evidence against them, despite the fact that the criminal case collapsed because the witness never turned up to testify in court.
That notwithstanding, the GPF’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) had found that the two officers had tortured and injured the teenager, while the Ministry of Home Affairs also had publicly acknowledged that he had been tortured and expressed its regret. In 2011, two years after the incident occurred, a civil action was filed on behalf of the youngster and Justice Roxane George found the two policemen liable, and awarded the victim $6.5 million, which the state eventually paid.
And now it has come to public attention that not only are the culprits still on the job, but the Police Service Commission (PSC) and the Commissioner of Police are so impressed with their performance, that they have been given promotions. And meanwhile the Ministry of Home Affairs and the government as a whole try to distance themselves from the decision to upgrade them, and attempt to suggest it would be inappropriate for one reason or another to comment on this.
Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee, under whose portfolio the police fall, regards himself as constitutionally debarred from interfering with the decisions of the PSC. While that may be so, it would seem he also has persuaded himself he is debarred from criticizing them when they have made a decision in flagrant opposition to an international convention to which Guyana is a signatory, and, it might be added, that suggests they have scant respect for the article on torture in the constitution. As for Dr Roger Luncheon, he gave the unfortunate impression at one of his press briefings that the promotions found support from the government. It was Attorney-General Anil Nandlall who hastened to explain subsequently that the Cabinet Secretary was only commenting on the promotions process and not on the merit of the promotions as such.
It might be noted en passant, that the AG must be squirming in embarrassment after President of the Bar Association Ronald Burch-Smith in a letter to this newspaper on Friday reprinted a press statement signed by a number of lawyers – some of them very prominent – condemning the torture and listing demands. It had first been issued in 2009 and the signatories included none other than Mr Nandlall before he was appointed Attorney General.
And now Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett and Presidential Advisor Gail Teixeira have joined the chorus of government spokespeople who feel they have no place to condemn what amounts effectively to the rewarding of torture. The Minister made Guyana’s presentation at the recent Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva the week before last, and she told the media on Wednesday that the case of the police officers did not come up there because the promotions happened in January this year, and the reporting period was from 2010 to 2014.
However, she too repeated the mantra that the government had no control over the PSC whose independence was enshrined in the constitution, and that it would not be good for the administration to comment on such matters. Ms Teixeira, apparently displaying less patience than Ms Rodrigues-Birkett, told reporters that the questions they were asking were distracting in a context where the two officials were reporting on Guyana’s presentation to the UPR. Apart from echoing Minister Rodrigues-Birkett’s statements on the inappropriateness of commenting, she also said somewhat curiously that the incident had been pronounced on by the courts. Indeed it had – at least in a civil action – but other objections aside, that surely does not preclude anyone from expressing an opinion on promotions which happened subsequent to that.
Where the UPR was concerned, the two representatives wriggled out on account of the time-frame, and as for what has been said by all members of the administration who have spoken on the subject so far, it should be pointed out – as is clear from our editorial of February 6 – that the United Nations Convention Against Torture enjoins each “State Party” to ensure that offences of torture are punishable by appropriate penalties, etc – not the PSC or the Commissioner of Police. To repeat, it is the government alone which will be held responsible at the international level for lapses in respect of the Convention, so one might have thought it would not have been in quite such a hurry to get itself lumped with the world’s more unsavoury states.
As things stand, therefore, the government is doing an exceptional job of conveying the impression (three months before an election, no less) that it endorses torture as a legitimate instrument in the interrogation of suspects. What other reason could there possibly be for its prevarications, not to mention its careful avoidance of questions relating to the promotions?
The unsuitability of particular members of the PSC was alluded to in the earlier leader, and certainly it has exhibited such appalling judgement in this instance, one would expect that its composition would have to be looked at with far more care following the election than appears to have been the case the last time around. But then there is the question of the acting Commissioner of Police Seelall Persaud, who spoke out on the matter for the first time on Thursday. What he had to say was not likely to reinforce public confidence in him either.
Commissioner Persaud told the media that since the officers in question had not been afforded the opportunity to represent themselves in the criminal case, natural justice did not prevail. Apparently he closed his eyes to the outcome of the civil case, the admission from the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the evidence found by the OPR. Owing to the fact that there was a criminal case, no internal disciplinary moves appear to have been made at the departmental level, so the guilty parties do not seem to have been punished in any conventional sense of that term. All that can be said is that one of them at least was interdicted from duty and went on half pay for the duration of the criminal trial.
Mr Persaud was quoted by this newspaper as saying, “You know, we have people going to prison for hideous offences. We can’t reject them when they come back into society. It is the same principle that applies…” Well, no, it is not the same principle that applies; the analogy is different. In any case, the crime in this instance is of such a grievous nature, it contradicts everything for which the Force is supposed to stand, and so undermines the public trust which is essential to effective police work, that the two officers concerned should have been removed from the GPF. Their rehabilitation could come in some other occupation, but they should certainly not be members of the Police Force.
“Life must go on,” said Commissioner Persaud airily. No doubt, but not necessarily with the offending sergeant raised to the rank of inspector, and the offending constable to the rank of corporal. The Commission on the Rights of the Child has already asked for these two promotions to be rescinded. Does the government agree? It would seem not; they are too busy sending the message they are at ease with the idea of torture practised by the GPF.
