Due Process and the Presumption of Innocence

by Keith R. Williams

DUE PROCESS AND THE PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE ARE LEGAL ENTITLE MENTS TO BE ENJOYED BY ALL, NOT PRIVILEGES TO BE DISPENSED TO A FEW

I agree 100% with the remarks of Steve Hemraj:

“I have been following the reports regarding the manner in which the PPP handled the two attorneys that represent persons charged with drug offences and I am disturbed by the presumption of a guilty verdict without the intervention of the legal system. Isn’t everyone entitled to an attorney and innocent until proven guilty? The precedent set here would be detrimental to everyone in the course of justice.”

My stomach churns however, when I consider that expression of this most crucial aspect about due process and the rule of law in our nation is peculiarly tepid when the bodies of persons officially and unofficially regarded as criminal suspects, turn up battered and dead. What manner of society have we devolved into that the politics of party do’s and don’ts seem to stir our consciousness to the prerequisites of our legal system more than bodies turning up mysteriously dead.

Mr. Hemraj went on to write:

“I believe that everyone is entitled to a defence attorney and the prosecution must provide unambiguous evidence to support the charges. As professionals, both gentlemen have a right to represent or defend a case as they see fit. This entire situation is a moral one and not a legal one. The judgment seems based on the argument that attorneys must accept cases based on morals and not by evidence. This kind of behavior is deep rooted in the entire society where we cannot distinguish morals from facts, right from wrong, and respect for people’s professions and professional arguments.

If the PPP wants to legislate morals then let the Parliament begin and start from the top down.”

In 1989-90, the then Mayor of New York City David Dinkins was pilloried by critics, especially those uncomfortable with an African American holding the Mayoralty of the Financial Capital of the world, for visiting with the survivors of a young man shot to death by Cops under questionable circumstances. The critics claimed that he was a drug dealer, (and he might have been), and that the Mayor, by visiting with his relatives was condoning his activities.

We experience some of the same maladjusted kinds of reasoning in Guyana, and notably by many who do not exactly practice what they preach. Bernie Kerik, flawed character notwithstanding, was considered qualified to police reform of our Law Enforcement Body, even though a born and bred Guyanese with the kind of record Kerik has, cannot gain admittance into the Guyana Police Force. And about the most obscene example of this maladjustment in reasoning inundated the pages of the print media following Ronald Waddell’s death, where un-substantiated criminal allegations were advanced, as if to rationalize his murder. While fighting back tears of indignation and more than a small degree of anger, I always wondered whether the newspapers exercised censorship over similar sentiments by kooks subsequent to the massacre of Minister (Sash) Sawh and others, since no equivalent like those that followed Waddell’s gunning down appeared in print.

On the cross where he had been placed to die Jesus turned to the two thieves sharing the moment of finality on earth with him and promised that in spite of how they lived, in death they would find redemption in his father’s kingdom. Apparently many who constantly postulate in his name are not particularly inspired by this 9th hour message of Christ before he passed from this world. But even if you are not a Christian, might have no religious beliefs, basic commonsense and human empathy should be enough to allow you to abstract the understanding that people do not stop loving their kith and kin because they are bad. And that empathy with grief in death is not a celebration or endorsement of the manner in which the deceased conducted his or her life. It is a civilized reaction to a human situation that is and will be visited upon everyone who is born into this world.

I do not know Steve Hemraj, and am not familiar with his politics. I have no idea whether the position he holds on the issue of the right to legal representation and the undiluted principle of the legal presumption of innocence is absolute and uninterrupted across the board. My reading of his letter however, particularly the comment:

“This kind of behavior is deep rooted in the entire society where we cannot distinguish morals from facts, right from wrong, and respect for people’s professions and professional arguments.”

This quote suggests that he has been paying keen attention to the public discourse on a myriad of issues related to Guyana. Philosophically, we are an embryonic society at best, and very rough around the edges when it comes to examining and pronouncing on issues, without being affected by nurtured influences that operate to sway us askance from objectivity and sometimes reality. Hopefully, the independent media will become agents of change for a paradigm shift from this “deep rooted attitude and behavior that renders our understanding of morals and facts, right and wrong”, ambivalent at best.