…excusing the GECOM Chair
As your Eyewitness has been saying, the one silver lining in this dark cloud of Prezzie’s unilateral appointment of (Chief?) Justice Patterson has been to suss out those who’ve been playing the one-love game, even as they pushed their agenda. Now, don’t get your Eyewitness wrong, he has absolutely no problem with any kind of agenda; his problem is with those who aren’t straight up about it — and in the process, bend a lot of naïve minds!
Take Rear Admiral Gary Best, who everyone thought had gone PPP when it was discovered he’d gotten a lot (a whole lot!!) at Pradoville II. But there he was: hired along with his cohort of Armed Forces brass as an adviser to Prezzie, causing a LOT of heads to be scratched! Was it the special bonding of those long barrack nights, or was it political affinities long hidden?
Well, now we know, after the man (now armed with a law degree) finely parsed Art 161 (2) to claim Prezzie was in the right when he made the aforementioned, much protested appointment.
Best claimed Prezzie could do whatever he wanted “if the Leader of the Opposition fails to submit a list as provided for…” Now, nothing wrong there…that’s what Art 161 (2) says. But Best interpreted the clause to say Presidential unilateralism kicks in, not if “the Leader of the Opposition fails to submit a list” — as even Prezzie assumed when he accepted further lists from Jagdeo — but if a “not unacceptable” list hadn’t been submitted!! He saw all of that in the ‘as provided for”!! Probably saw it from the REAR!! So, if we go by Best, the Opposition Leader has one shot at the cherry…and then it’s all Prezzie’s sole prerogative to reject the list and pick his Judge!
But if Best is a lawyer, he’d know that even if he were mechanistically interpreting the LETTER of the law in a strictly positivist sense, he was making a fool of the law. Is 1992 so far back that he’s forgotten the clear INTENT of the newly inserted Article 161 (2) — to infuse wider legitimacy into the GECOM Chair? This isn’t even venturing into a normative perspective of the law – hell!…that was done when the legislators PASSED the law!!
But what was surprising was an African-rights activist calling the above positivist sophistry “brilliant”. So, is he accepting the Brits’ position that since slavery was allowed by the law before 1834, it was OK? So why are we claiming reparations for acts done legally?
Those who would push the intent of Art 161 (1) under the bus can’t have it both ways.
…and lame SOCU excuse
It took about a year after the infamous high-speed tailing from the NICIL HQ — which turned deadly for a poor soldier boy ordered on a wild (paper) goose chase — to ascertain that SOCU was a police unit, and so falls under Public Security Minister Ramjattan. That had to be clarified because he hadn’t the foggiest notion that SOCU was trailing NICIL files when its remit was summarised by its name – Special ORGANISED CRIME Unit!
Now your Eyewitness always thought “organised” crime was committed by gangs engaged in bootlegging, procuring (girls), drugs etc. So he wasn’t surprised SOCU’s case against New GMC’s head and his deputy was thrown out by the Judge. Is a manager and his assistant approving payments (even if it were true) ORGANISED CRIME? They’re a gang?
Now this occurred right after the DPP had stated that SOCU’s investigators were preparing piss-poor cases. But rather than Ramjattan explaining what happened, it was the Cabinet Secretary who claimed SOCU still doesn’t have enough investigators.
Maybe Ramjattan knows there’s no case?
