God, put a hand, please!

If life in our beloved country had not become so frightening because of the rampant and serious crimes, murders, robberies, kidnapping, rapes and corruption in places high and low, our country would still have been the paradise it once was. Now it seems some are beyond the reach of the law. The lust for power drives men mad and the people live in great fear.

Justice Narine, as he was just before his elevation to Court of Appeal, leaves the Abu Bakr affidavit as part of the litigation over which he sits in judgement. He fails sufficiently to clarify his reasons for doing so. The question is: should he have discarded Bakr’s affidavit in its totality in the first instance. The real issue is the Court of Appeal and the Privy Council having found the affidavit scandalous and or irrelevant when Abu Bakr filed it his defence, attempting to enforce a contract allegedly entered into between himself and the Prime Minister, does that contract if it had in fact been made, become utterly useless in law and inadmissible in evidence in a criminal case?

Abu Bakr claimed therein that he and the Prime Minister had agreed that in return for Abu Bakr using his feared Muslimeen to 'disuade' voters from exercising their franchise in favour of the UNC, mainly in the marginal seats, in the 2002 general elections, that the Prime Minister's Government would not enforce the order of the court to sell the Muslimeen’s property to compensate for the destruction of state property during the 1990 uprising by Abu Bakr and his men.

Does the rejection of the alleged contract by the Court of Appeal and the Privy Council make its use invalid in law – outside of the law of contract? Justice Jean Permanand, retired Court of Appeal Judge and Chair of the JLSC think so.  So does the Honourable Attorney General John Jeremy.  In scathing terms they reprimand the judge, Justice Narendra Narine for referring that contentious alleged contract to the DPP and the Commissioner of Police for the necessary action.

AG John Jeremie's attack under the cloak of Parliamentary privilege on Justice Narine is cowardly and reprehensible. The law is so clear on the issue, that I am flabbergasted. These critics of the judge seem to disregard a most elementary point of law, namely that while the alleged contract was unenforceable in contract law by Abu Bakr – because it was contrary to public policy and was an illegal contract – if there was indeed such an agreement between Abu Bakr and the Prime Minister, that does not mean that the alleged contract had no value or legal status in criminal law. It has vital evidential value.

The Privy Council described the alleged contract as “corrupt”, but it has its own status and validity in law- in criminal law. I therefore cannot understand the caustic and disrespectful criticisms of the judge in his referring the alleged contract to the Commissioner of Police and the Director of Public Prosecution. If it is found that there was such an agreement between Abu Bakr representing the Muslimeen group and the Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago representing the State, then indeed it would be not merely a scandalous state of affairs but it would be very relevant in prosecuting both parties to the contract for a very serious and jailable criminal offence. The consequence would be a tectonic shift in political positioning.  Is that why so many people are becoming so desperate?

And the Privy Council held that such a contract would be an attempt to undermine the very foundation of Parliamentary democracy. The finding of the Privy Council of corruption would be very relevant as evidence of a serious criminal offence. Both parties to the contract could be jailed for a long term for entering an illegal contract intended to undermine democracy and disenfranchise people opposed to the PNM government. Would retired justice of Appeal Permanand and the Attorney General deny the validity of this statement?

If the police were prepared in the due execution of their duty to go to the home of former Chief Justice Satnarine Sharma, to enter his home and bring him like a common felon to face justice (the Privy Council held that CJ Sharma had done no wrong). Will the Prime Minister and Abu Bakr now be beyond the reach of the law if it is found that such and agreement had in truth and in fact been entered into by both of them?

Now it seems that the Commissioner of Police may not be pursuing the report by the Prime Minister's wife, the Honourable Hazel Manning, who said that there was reported to her a plot afoot to assassinate the Prime Minister. If the Commissioner of Police does not intend to take any further actions to find the alleged assassin, is it merely because the Prime Minister may not be desirous of pursuing so serious a threat to him and to the stability and reputation of our own fair land? If that is so, it still does not exonerate the Commissioner of Police from doing his duty. If the report is true then the Commissioner is duty bound to rid this country of such a dangerous menace. If it is not true then Police time has been wasted and that too is an offence in law.

The People get the Government they deserve and that includes the Opposition. Some in high places whose bellies and pockets are full say: ‘We like it so’ – and those who drink the foul drain water in shanty town, shout ‘Black supremacy!’ And south of the Caroni River they sing, “Rum, and Panday till I die!”  Woe be onto us! Like Rome in the times of Caesar, there seems to one man only who bestrides the land like a colossus and petty men and women sell their body and their soul for position, wealth, power and fame. We cannot serve both God and Man.  God, put a hand, please.