| THE VOICE OF THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS By Sase SinghA remand prisoner is one who has been charged but not convicted by the judicial system and is being detained pending a FAIR TRIAL. Six years ago, I wrote a piece in support of Justice Roxanne George when she had cause to throw out a case against Justin John from the Rupununi.He had languished in the Camp Street prison for seven years, and all because the prosecutorial service remained unprepared for trial after all that time had elapsed. Today we have hundreds of Guyanese on remand in a jail system that appears to have judged them before they have even been convicted.What if they are innocent? Can we understand why there will be another prison riot in the future? The system has failed the persons on remand.In the UK, according to a current report from their Chief Inspector of Prisons, a remandee spends an average of nine weeks on the inside and represents some 15 percent of their prison population. But in Guyana, we are in the competition for one of the world’s worst prison records.I am advised that our remandees are more likely to spend ninety weeks on the inside. They constitute close to 36 percent of the prison population. One of the worst cases on record is the case concerning a remandee named Davindra Persaud from Mahaica. Mr. Davindra Persaud has spent some 267 weeks on the inside so far without access to a FAIR TRIAL. How on earth can a system deny an un-convicted person his rights for 267 weeks?This broken jail system in Guyana is evil and the Director of Prisons ought to have spoken up publicly on these abnormalities before these prison riots.It is an established principle that remandees should have rights and entitlements not available to sentenced prisoners. But in Guyana this clearly is not the case.Rather, the system works in a manner that deliberately converts people who have not been proven guilty, into hardens criminals,Wholesale Jerseys, months into their unnecessary and unjust incarceration.THE CASE BACKLOGSThe ability of the criminal justice systems to process cases effectively and efficiently is a basic ingredient of any functional society. Clearly the judicial system is a principal contributor to the dysfunctionality in the Guyanese society.Why to date have we not instituted the night court system and the lay magistrate system to dispense justice in a swifter manner?But to add salt to the wound, the magistrates and judges of Guyana are too inconsiderate in how they offer adjournment to cases,Cheap NFL Jerseys, which is also a major factor in clogging the system.If the prosecutors are not ready to proceed with his case, then some of these cases ought to be thrown out for lack of evidence.If defence attorneys are not ready,Cheap NFL Jerseys Wholesale, then the case must proceed regardless. It is no fault of the person charged that some lawyers are sloppy administrators. These delays just add to the appearance that the entire judicial system is very slow.It is the duty of the prosecutors to convince the court to convict the defendant and this must be done in a timely manner. A defendant must not pay a price because of slipshod prosecutorial services.Every day in Guyana, court cases are piling up, causing the average time on the inside for a person on remand to be increasing. But what is even worse, is that on average some $485,000 per year of taxpayers’ money is being spent to feed a single prisoner.If we are to calculate the total boarding, lodging,jerseys from china, medical and clothing cost of each person on the inside, it can very well cost this nation more than $750,000 per person. Even the average lower income man who goes to work every day barely earns that much per year. This is nothing but financial wastage and a criminal act against the working man!According to the latest Auditor General Report, some 17,729 cases were scheduled to be heard in the Demerara Magisterial County in 2014. I am reliably informed that at the end of last year there were over 30,000 such cases pending across Guyana. What this illustrates is that judicial officials, especially magistrates, are not working hard enough and are most inefficient inthe art of bringing closure to their cases.In 2007, there was a process called mediation that was introduced to the judicial system. Several judicial officers earned millions of dollars in additional personal income on an IDB project to tackle the backlogs of cases. But we are back to square one today and this illustrates that the top officials in the judicial system are failing the nation. WHAT’S BEHIND THE BACKLOG?A combination of factors are to blame for this crisis including lack of technology in the judicial system, politics, incompetence of some judicial officials, a social meltdown in Guyana where people easily embrace criminality rather than the rule of law and the inability of the executives in confirming the Chancellor and Chief Justice (which are good reasons for them to work to rule).There is a corrupt police investigatory system, an overwhelmed DPP chambers, inadequate judges and magistrates on the benches, an inefficient court scheduling system and an outdated set of criminal laws that can send little boys to jail for three years because they smoke a marijuana cigarette.As a point aside, I wonder if the Accountant General told the magistrates and police prosecutors that they have to wait three years for their salary cheques because his staff is still working on the computation and not prepared to cut those cheques, how they would feel?There are over 500 men,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, mainly Afro-Guyanese,Cheap NFL Jerseys China, on remand and many of them are waiting more than three years for justice.It is nothing but an act of criminality what is happening to those people on remand.When will this end? The prison population has ballooned since 1999 to the point that today the Camp Street prisons holds 30 percent more inmates than it was constructed to hold.In such condition, it is natural that we will have periodic prison rebellions especially among the population of remandees.I have consulted both the laws of Guyana and a lawyer and I can safely say that it is my belief that it is possible for His Excellency the President if he so wishes, to grant Presidential pardons to those remandee who have been locked away for long periods of time without access to justice. I truly believe that Davindra Persaud ought to be seriously considered for a Presidential pardon along with all those remandee who are rotting away in a failed system for more than three years without a Trial. |
