Bdos: Some people more equal than others

Equal treatment before the law
By Stephen Alleyne

Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) is not the only country in the Caribbean where people with ‘clout’ or of ‘substance’ go to great lengths to interfere with due process. Barbados is another. Many in this country who fit this description are of the firm belief that those of their ilk should not suffer the same discomforts ordinary folk endure when they find themselves on the wrong side of the law.

An incident in T&T recently is what led me to bring the workings of our criminal justice system under scrutiny. Those closely following the Piarco Airport New Terminal Project corruption investigations in T&T would know that several members of the United National Congress were arrested and charged with corruption. Last month the Anti-Corruption Investigations Bureau arrested former UNC finance and tourism minister Brian Kuei Tung, former chairman of the National Insurance Property Development Company Edward Bayley, former chairmen of the Airports Authority Tyrone Gopee, Ameer Edoo and a business woman. They were all charged with corruption arising out of the same project and granted conditional bail.

The terms of their bail, however, have caused prominent members of the legal profession in T&T to ask some questions. Given the circumstances the granting of conditional bail was unprecedented. Lawyers want to know if the same conditions would apply to other persons who make similar applications in the future. Here we would ask if the same conditions would be extended to Ding Ding’s son if he were charged in similar circumstances.

According to reports out of T&T, the magistrate who issued the warrant had made it mandatory that their bail bonds had to be approved by a Clerk of the Peace. After efforts to locate the Clerk of the Peace III for Port of Spain failed, defence lawyers, at 1 a.m., contacted the Registrar of the Supreme Court and got her to contact a judge of the Supreme Court who came and heard arguments for over an hour before he agreed to vary the order of the magistrate. All the parties but one were granted conditional bail.

Would a judge anywhere in the Caribbean leave his warm bed at one ‘o clock in the morning to vary Ding Ding’s son bail to save him from a few hours mosquito bites? You may argue that Ding Ding’s son would not be charged with white-collar crime but the question has to be asked. These are the types of issues which continue to plague the criminal justice system. Questions relating to even-handedness are raised at every stage of the criminal justice system. I have had to ask questions myself.

About 12 years ago I arrested a Caucasian businessman and charged him with the theft of a motorcar. Because of his connections, I thought it was imprudent for the police to grant him bail. From the interviews I had conducted with him and the fact that we were not in possession of his passport, I felt sure that he would have fled the island if given bail. Bail was therefore refused.

Within half an hour of placing him in the holding cell, the phone ran; an officer of a higher rank was on the line. The senior officer on the phone gave instructions, which obviously originated from other quarters, to grant him bail. The same night he was granted bail in his own recognisance to return to court the following day.

Next day, probably for good manners, he returned to court and the magistrate had no choice but to remand him on bail. Remanding him in custody would have been senseless after the police had granted him bail the night before. In a matter of days that gentleman vanished and ended up in Canada. This happened because somebody outside the force believed he should not sleep in a holding cell.

Be that as it may, God willing I am still prepared to give evidence in the matter if he should ever set foot on these shore again. What applies to Peter should apply to Paul. All individuals, regardless of colour, class, status, wealth, political affiliation, must be treated equally before the law.