How does one put aside matters such as torture?

Dear Editor,

It is with a sense of incredulity, and then one of horror, that I read the article in your Stabroek News edition of January 24, captioned ‘Torture aside, Leonora cop had an unblemished record.”

The article relates that two police officers, Narine Lall and Mohanram Dolai, while on active duty, deliberately poured an inflammable substance onto the genitals of a teenager while in custody, and set him afire. The Ministry of Home Affairs is reported to have acknowledged the wrongdoing and expressed regret. Justice Roxanne George subsequently found the two liable for torturing the teenager and awarded damages against them. The story reports that these were paid by the state. The two police officers have recently been promoted in the last round of promotions by the Guyana Police Force, which has drawn sharp criticism from various sections of the public. The Chairman of the Guyana Police Service Commission, Mr Omesh Satyanand told reporters that the promotion of Narine Lall was justified because he had an unblemished career save for the torture incident. [Mohanram Dolai was promoted by Police Commissioner Seelall Persaud.]

Guyana became a signatory to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punish-ment (commonly known as the United Nations Convention against Torture) on January 25, 1988. Article 1.1 of the Convention defines torture as follows:-

“…any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.”

The International Law Commis-sion of the United Nations General Assembly has specifically included torture in its definition of crimes against humanity.

I could not believe what I was reading. Two state agents were found liable in relation to torturing a teenager in their custody by a court of law, conduct amounting to a breach of an international convention to which Guyana is a party and in fact, a breach of international criminal law, and a service commission subsequently promotes one of them and blithely dismisses this as of no consequence. How does one dismiss or put aside matters such as torture? Indeed, the commissioners are not ordinary commissioners. Their commission is a constitutional one. What we are confronted with is a situation where members of a constitutional commission dismiss a breach of an international convention and reward one of the perpetrators of the act. It is difficult to imagine how these persons remained as members of the Guyana Police Force, much less won promotion. One must now question the judgment of the commissioners who could blithely dismiss such a serious criminal act as one of no consequence. And one of them by virtue of his office also sits on the Judicial Service Commission! How unfortunate.

Yours faithfully,
Brynmor T I Pollard, SC