Dear Editor,
While the Minister of Home Affairs waxes about the rule of law, and many proceed to morally preen themselves while vilifying the supposed ill-conduct of villagers in Buxton and residents of Ruimveldt in the GPL issue, we are witnesses to the most awful and disgusting abuses of the law by those occupying the very pinnacles of power in the society. The resulting impotence of the police to deal procedurally with breaches of the law arising from these abuses, unequivocally renders obsolete their commitment to carry out the functions of their office ‘faithfully, and without favour and affection, malice or ill-will’.
Maybe these barefaced examples of a double standard in the administration of justice in Guyana in broad daylight, will convince non partisan sceptics that complaints and claims from those at the furthest end of the continuum of political power that discrimination and marginalization exist in the system of governance, are not myths and merely figments of their imaginations. Because it has to be more than a tad disingenuous to continue to give credence to the politically correct notion that the cognitive fault lines that produce the kinds of arrogant conduct and behaviour we are witnesses to, suddenly disappear when it comes to discrimination and marginalization. We have no problem extrapolating criminality of some in Buxton across the board, but hasten to isolate and detach attitudes, behaviours and conduct of some in government, from the collective and parent body. I guess George Orwell must have used a future Guyana as a laboratory for his Animal Farm work of fiction.
The series of charges that should have followed the conduct of Minister Kellawan Lall include Assault Causing Actual Bodily Harm, Threatening Behaviour, and Discharging a Loaded Firearm with Intent. While it is reasonable to sustain the nolle prosequi wishes of the Virtual Complainant in respect of the Assault and Threatening Behaviour offences, that does not hold with respect to the discharging of the firearm. That victim of those two offences has no say in the imposition or non-imposition of charges that fall under the Firearms Act. This is a clear and transparent example of how the law operates and functions today in Guyana. The principle of equality under the law handed down with our independence now carries an attachment that suggests that a few of us are more equal under the law than the multitude.
An applicant for a firearm licence in Guyana is required to produce testimonials as proof of his or her temperament to be entrusted with a lethal weapon like a gun. And inscripted on the face of that permit he or she receives, are explicit conditions governing the use and custody of such firearm. The conduct and behaviour of the minister in question, as reported by the press, violates more than one of the legal requirements for his continued ownership of a licensed firearm. That the state then discharges this matter with the ludicrous explanation that it has been settled between the minister and his victim, makes a hell of a mockery of the administration of our laws, of the principle that none of us are above or below it, and suggests that Demockery rather than Democracy is a lot more descriptive of the system of governance in operation in our nation today.
Yours faithfully,
Robin Williams
