Contributing Author Dickson Igwe
A twin narrative on the critical importance of integrity in the legal system
The Island Sun Newspaper of January 28, 2012, an article titled ‘’ Queens Counsel Farara delivers Frederick Pickering memorial Lecture,’’ and the newspaper gave a rendition of a Constitutional Expert’s opinions on aspects of Virgin Islands constitutional and legal history, governance, and law.
Probably the most eloquent man this Pilgrim has ever had the pleasure of meeting, Gerard Farara QC, according to the article, spoke of the Rule of Law as a point in good governance, rooted in the concept of fairness. The Rule of law, according to the Learned Man, required a legal framework that was independent, impartial, and fair, providing equality before the law. He further explained how the concept encompassed the full protection of human rights, particularly those of minorities. Consequently the Rule of Law required an independent and impartial judiciary, and an incorruptible police force.
Now this excellent man’s rendition of constitutional and legal matters was at the 24th Annual Frederick Pickering Memorial Lecture, held on January 17, 2012, at the Eileen Parsons Auditorium in the H Lavity Stoutt Community College, Tortola, Virgin Islands. The 2012 topic was ‘’ The 2007 Constitution, and Good Governance in the Virgin Islands.’’
It came after this Pilgrim penned the following narrative on the law and its peculiarities. However this Layman considered it fortuitous indeed that he should have read the earliest publication of the Island Sun of January 28, 2012. Allow him to proceed on what he considers a ‘weighty narrative.’
OK, a spyglass into the world of lawyers and jurists is requisite at this time. The lawyer plays a key and prominent role in community, and lawyers are the scribes who drive all aspects of secular society. He or she mans a legal machine that oversees the social order in nearly every parameter: constitutional, judicial, commercial, and social.
And the Rule of Law is one of the finest ideas ever to spring forth from that most complex, but flawed of creatures called man. It provides the crucible within which community and society can exist in safety and harmony. It is a bulwark against the dangers of anarchy, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and dictatorship. It is also the main determinant of the quality of life in any modern democracy, and it acts as the bedrock for any culture or value system.
Western democracy and freedom, in all of its varied parameters could not exist without this most profound of concepts. The Rule of Law is furthermore a fundamental feature of the principle of separation of powers, with the judiciary as its guardian, but it is also critical to an effective executive and legislative branch: in other words, to good governance. No modern democracy is safe and secure, if not governed by law.
However, there are times when the law and the rules it supposedly upholds, and the various aspects thereof, fall far short of this ideal: these are times when it is obvious that extraneous factors such as inequality, esotery, fear, and even nepotism and corruption, hamper the effective delivery of fair justice. And this is a factor that can have egregious effects on any community, especially when the people perceive that the law is unfair and unequal.
That it is a body of unrelenting and binding narrative that works for the wealthy and powerful alone; a modus Vivendi under the tutelage of scholarly types, working for specific interests, and cutting out the poor and underprivileged, and those on the more disadvantageous end of an intangible and sliding scale of justice delivery.
It would appear that most societies possess this unequal legal dynamic to some extent, unique to each. Always, this inequality, or non equal treatment of the individual before the law, is peculiar to the type of social and political environment these societies possess. In other words, inequality or inequity in the delivery of justice is an idiosyncrasy relative to the geography and social character of a country: an unfortunate fact of modern life.
In the USA for example, wealth and privilege still gives an unfair advantage; just look at the number of minorities on death row, or unfairly incarcerated, and how the rich in that country have time and again escaped the clutches of the law and justice. Then in tyrannies, the law is simply a tool of dictatorship, used to repress and control the population. Thousands of men and women languish in prisons in the Middle East today, simply because of their religion, and ethnic subset.
Even within the British Common Law system of an unwritten constitution governed by custom and convention, and judicial precedent, there are various devices that the privileged can use to escape the wrath of justice; this, notwithstanding the high call of British equity and fairness.
Ultimately, the notion of fairness before the law is an ideal that resides in the hearts of men and women. And the legal establishment better pay attention to this idea of the human conscience as final arbiter of morality, even though it may feel ‘high and mighty,’ and smug, at its possession of a body of knowledge that places its proponents and practitioners at the very apex of power in most democracies, especially those of the Western type.
Bear in mind that the halls of power are the natural abode of the lawyer: a simple look at the leaders of nations past and present will determine that this is so. And the West Indies are no different in this dynamic of power, placing the jurist at the pinnacle of society!
Still, the law must never take the man on the street and his opinions for granted, when using its various devices and instruments in the adversarial thrust to get one who may be guilty or even innocent off the hook, or in prosecuting the criminal. It will always leave a bad after taste if justice is seen not to be done. Just look at the OJ Simpson matter, and the years that have followed.
Injustice has a way of coming back to haunt the guilty over and over again, with wider repercussions for community and society.
To be continued
