…the verdict
Your Eyewitness still hasn’t gotten over the decision handed down by the divided Court of Appeal on the Government’s contention that the Chief Justice had erred in the High Court when she ruled that 33 was the majority in the 65-member Assembly!
Imagine that!! But to reach that verdict the Chancellor and Justice Gregory-Barnes had to twist themselves into legal pretzels by dividing folks into halves, “rounding” them back “whole”, and then throwing in “one more” for good measure!! God knows where that “one” would come from!!
Your Eyewitness was reminded about those complicated contraptions that were conjured up by Rube Goldberg to perform the simplest of tasks. For example, there was that “self-operating napkin machine” with at least twelve moving parts that included a spoon, a piece of bread, a bird, a scale, a hook…etc just to wipe one’s lip!
It’s not surprising that, since yesterday, the judges have been ridiculed by writers and caricatured by cartoonists – not to mention being hooted at by even those who didn’t get past “lil ABC”!! After all, how difficult would it have been for even two fishermen divvying up their catch of 65 fishes to figure out who gets the “majority”? All they’d have to do would be to put one fish alternately into their respective “quakes”, and then the last fish left would be added to the quake that now has the majority of fishes!! No need to cut up the fishes into halves and then join them up again!! Their pals who might’ve gone on to do first form “sets” in “maths” would’ve informed them that the 65 fishes were the “universal set”, and that the divvying up would form two subsets, let’s call them “yes” and “No”, and the one that gets the last fish would be the majority!!
The point which the Justices refused to consider is that there are different mathematical operations to handle different realities, and not just one that has no bearing on the reality. People can’t be divided into halves, unless you’re the Texas Chainsaw Murderer. They are discrete units, and you have to use the appropriate mathematical operation when “dividing” them. Things like temperature and height are continuous variables, and you can divide to your heart’s content to compare them.
But what the two Judges did was to exceed their remit – which is to INTERPRET the Constitution, not to ADD to it by adding the word “ABSOLUTE” to the word “majority” in Art 106 (7). Sure, there’s a thing called “judge made law”, when the law is tweaked in a certain direction, but not this massive insertion into the Constitution – the highest law in the land. That violates the separation of powers!
…the application
The AG’s in seventh heaven after the Appellate Court upheld his plea to save the Government from the ignominy of being ousted because of his faux pas. He claimed he’d known of the “cutting up bodies in halves” doctrine, when Nagamootoo and Volda were throwing in the towel, but he didn’t bring it up at the time — for reasons he still hasn’t disclosed!!
Anyhow, who’s your Eyewitness to begrudge his moment of glory after his loooong string of failures?
But surely he went overboard when he announced the Appellate decision meant “business as usual” for the Government. And your Eyewitness isn’t even thinking about the CCJ hurdle that lies ahead. More about the swathes of disenchantment exposed in their traditional constituency during their frenetic campaign, when they tried to fill with dew what rain didn’t full!! Their previous neglect has been noted.
All the appellate Court has given the PNC-led Government is more time for their weak underbelly to be exposed.
Between now and election time, the PPP will be just raking in the disaffected.
…the unanimous verdict
While there was disagreement between the High Court and the Appellate Court on what’s a “majority”, there was unanimity that dual citizens have to be expelled from the Assembly.
Let the casting out begin!!
