Justice and injustice

THE COUNTRY'S judicial system has acquitted the lowly scapegoats in the Montego Bay Street People Scandal and in so doing has preserved its image for dispensing justice.

Did anyone in this country ever believe that St James Parish Council employees and police officers alone colluded to round up street people in Montego Bay and to dump them in St Elizabeth? Does anyone believe that officials above the level of truck driver and constable were not involved in plotting the cleansing of the tourist resort of street people by illegal removal, and that none of these persons can now be identified by adequate investigation? The independent Office of Director of Public Prosecutions has failed in its duty to place such persons before the courts.

If the law is perceived to be patently unjust, citizens may feel released from any obligation to obey it and hence resort to civil disobedience. Feelings have run high that the demands of justice were not well served in placing alone before the courts persons at the bottom of the hierarchy who at best would be simply carrying out orders from superiors. The acquittal of Woman Constable Maxine Pindling in particular has led to a collective sigh of relief.

Every now and again there are cases which attract and hold a great deal of public interest. The Montego Bay street people affair has been one such. Issues of human rights, of justice/injustice, of equality before the law, and of corruption in high places came to the fore in a society where these are perennially matters of concern. This is the kind of scandalous action that could bring down entire governments, or at least trigger the resignation of state officials with portfolio responsibilities, in places where the niceties of responsibility and accountability are held in high regard under the rule of law.

The impenetrability of what is widely viewed as a cover-up speaks as loudly for injustice as the judicial acquittals speak for justice.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner.

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