creole@wow.net

From sanctum to regular crime scene

It’s been sudden and steep, but the decline of the judiciary, from the exalted rank of a high priesthood, is news less sensational than the reminder of the expansive range of executive power.

The precedent now set is that the chambers of the Chief Justice may be searched by police seeking evidence of crime. It may happen even during the absence from the country of the office-holder.

Almost coincidentally, bandits entered the home of a High Court judge, tied her up with her husband, and took their cash and jewelry.

One judge’s home thus became a crime scene.The Chief Justice’s chambers also became a crime scene.

Neither common thief nor Watergate-type perpetrator of high crimes and misdemeanours had broken into the Hall of Justice. The alleged wrongdoer might be the Chief Justice himself.

And the big story was that this working theory could be actually entertained as a point of departure for police investigation.

Search of the third-floor sanctum of the Hall of Justice has thus been made to appear like the everyday execution of a warrant.

Way down the hierarchy, a magistrate had been found to sign a warrant certain to embarrass the holder of the topmost judicial office.

Lest the search be thought the aberrant over-reaching by some over-zealous, low-level investigator, the Commissioner of Police himself showed up, claiming ownership.

In the process, a brilliant, hard-edged fact of T&T life today became available for interrogation.

What does it mean; what could it mean?

The official who presides over the highest court in the land, the Chief Justice, also perches atop the judicial branch of government.

As has now been shown, it’s a potentially short drop from way up there, down to the mean street named after St Vincent.

T&T may yet see a local version of what the Americans call the “perp walk.” That’s the televised procession to and from the courthouse of high-level alleged perpetrators and their wives, amid escorting “law enforcement” officers.

In Port-of-Spain, the impending “perp walk” from the Hall of Justice on Knox to the Magistrates Court on St Vincent Street testifies only to the unbridled reach of relatively unchallenged executive domination.

Here, executive power can express itself, even when only rhetorically-challenged, as an over-killing brute force.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning once declared a state of emergency for the purpose of removing the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Occah Seapaul.

Ms Seapaul’s brother, Ralph Maraj, then a member of the Manning government, promptly defected to the opposition UNC.

That both sister and brother are once again reconciled to the Manning PNM marks their resignation to a reality of political culture.

It concedes the unabridgeable right of a prime minister to command a military siege of the Speaker’s residence in St Clair.

Prime Minister ANR Robinson once demanded the resignations of every member of his Cabinet save the Attorney General.

He then called in the ministers individually for a stern talking-to, finally reinstating all but the incorrigible John Humphrey.

With all its outlandishness, the exercise taught what the Prime Minister, with the Attorney General at his elbow, can get away with.

Addressing the House on May 12, Mr Manning lamented having to report, “once again, that another controversy has developed in which accusations have been made against the Honourable Chief Justice?”

Never once did he drop the Honourable” from references to Chief Justice Satnarine Sharma,

But he portrayed Mr Sharma, whom he had confronted with damaging allegations, as a man falling apart before his eyes.

“It was, in fact, painful to experience,” according to the Manning narrative.

The Honourable CJ had been “emotionally distraught,” “incoherent,” “rattled,” “in a state of deep emotion” and “noticeable anguish.”

All the while, the Prime Minister, in a peculiar reversal of roles, had been calmly taking notes.In face of the accusations, the Chief Justice was trembling fearfully.

The Prime Minister attributed to himself the characteristics of best judicial practice:

“I will consider carefully and dispassionately all the material put before me. I will carry out my constitutional duty in accordance with the rule of law and the principles of fairness, as is expected of me.”

Mr Sharma was in a wretched state, hardly in control of himself. Untroubled in spirit, Mr Manning coolly occupied the higher moral ground.

Shortly, Attorney General John Jeremie, instructed to “give very urgent attention” to the anti-Sharma allegations, forwarded to the Commissioner a document which “appears to warrant police investigation?”

Rapidly, matters went steeply downhill. From that emotion-charged meeting between the head of government and the head of the judiciary, to a crime scene with a Fraud Squad woman corporal examining confidential files in the Chief Justice’s cabinets.

This much hadn’t happened recently. By now, however, so many supposed untouchables have been touched that a message has been sent about the reach of executive power.

Even so, it’s somehow not possible to imagine equally well-publicised searches of the offices or homes of the two Manning Cabinet ministers who have been charged with corruption.

The house and the office of Lawrence Duprey, international entrepreneur and industrialist, had each been searched or, in media language, “raided.”

A more spectacular raid by black-clad paramilitaries was, last year, attempted at the home of Basdeo Panday, then Opposition Leader, but the occupants were out.

The country’s reputation has survived that and more, even as it gains the image of a place where a menacing bizarreness is the norm.

Indeed, there is saving grace. The economy keeps ticking over productively.

This is the latest assurance of Central Bank Governor Ewart Williams, happily crunching numbers depicting robust economic growth, and copious foreign exchange inflows, surpassing the outflows.

In a timely intervention, the governor effectively advertises T&T as a good place to do business and to live.

Even if, he notes, more and more residents, some for “socio-political” reasons, want to secure financial nest eggs abroad.