Dear Editor,
I have followed the ongoing discussion following the decision of the Honourable Chief Justice in the matter involving the Commissioner of Police. I read the judgment with all its salacious detail and I accept that the Director of Public Prosecutions’ decision to prosecute is clearly reviewable by a court. I learnt that this is not the first time a court in Guyana has reviewed the DPP‘s decision. It is the first time that an application was made prior to the charge. The Honourable Justice Roxanne George and the Honourable Justice William Ramlall, in both cases ruled that the DPP’s decision to charge was irrational.
Any practising criminal law practitioner would appreciate that in some cases, where the elements of the offence are not present, a court may determine that the DPP’s decision to prosecute was irrational. In a case of rape, where it is usually the alleged victim’s word against that of the alleged suspect, I would have imagined that the issue of consent is one to be properly left to a jury. There is no dispute in this matter that sex took place, so the issue is one of consent.
The Honourable Chief Justice drew certain inferences that I didn’t agree with and it is precisely this that makes such a matter one for a jury to determine – whether the accused is guilty or not guilty.
In judging their fellow man or woman, jurors bring to court their experiences of real life. A criminal trial is a hearing where an ordinary person is accused of something they deny. It is the prosecution which must prove that the accused committed the offence and they do it by producing witnesses. Witnesses are ordinary people. Who better to assess their evidence than their peers? Jurors have an understanding of real life in all its shades and it is this independence of thought and spirit that is critical in judging one’s peers. It may well be that the Honourable Chief Justice in his sophisticated world may have been shocked by some of the content in the alleged victim’s statement, that an ordinary person may find not only believable but acceptable. It takes the ordinary and practical experience of ordinary people to properly judge the actions of an accused.
It must be that it is a group of citizens not state appointees who determine whether other citizens have committed offences. For all its imperfections and occasional failures (all too human), the jury system works and it has earned its place at the heart of our criminal justice system.
Life goes in the Republic and one would have imagined that the courts would have been inundated with similar applications, but the perception may be that the court favours certain applicants.
Yours faithfully,
Dawn A Holder
