Melville Cooke
ON MONDAY, The Gleaner reported that Christopher Bowen, chairman of the Special Constabulary Association, has demanded a Resident Magistrate assigned to St. Mary make a public apology. This arose from an incident in which the RM had a female special constable placed under arrest because she was not calling the names of accused persons as loud as 'yer ana' thought necessary for justice not only be done, but heard to be done.
It is not the first time a magistrate has shown us just how dumb the justice can be in matters of loud speech. Some years ago a Justice Reid had the female complainant in a rape case placed under arrest in a downtown Kingston court when she did not speak as loudly as he wished. The woman, from Portland, had come to Kingston and missed the last bus home. She went to the logical place those who cannot afford to rent a room for the night go to when they are stranded, a police station.
It proved to not be safe haven, as she was raped. Then, to add assault to battery, the judge was hard-hearted enough to have her arrested because when she journeyed back from Portland seeking justice in the matter she did not bellow out the details of the savagery meted out to her psyche and most intimate physical parts like she was ordering two patty and a box juice over the competing din of other hungry people.
I have very little personal experience with the justice system (and intend to keep it that way). But while the Kraal and Michael Gayle cases, the Braeton and Tivoli enquires stand out in illustrating how elusive justice is for Jamaicans who have not sold enough cocaine or stolen enough money to buy the services of a QC or two, way down the rungs of the justice ladder Jamaicans are being battered on a regular basis by dumb justice(s).
FRAMED
And a large part of this is that calling out of the name of the accused. I learnt that in the St. Ann's Bay Traffic Court about two years ago, when a policeman from Port Maria framed me for speeding near the JDF camp in Moneague, St. Ann, felt me up and said "me a go lock yu up todey", proceeding to search the car, his back turned, holstered gun ready to my (itching) hand and his partner lolling against the patrol car across the road.
I attended court thrice (he did not turn up and a judge dismissed the matter) and saw dumb justice at work and was appalled. First, there is this bellowing of the name. The clerk of court speaks normally enough, 'Mark Clemens'. Then the police person marshalling the line amplifies MARK CLEMENS! Hard on that comes the gut bellow of the police personnel by the door, MAARK CLEMMENS!!!. This is taken up by a third police person, MAAAAARKKKK CLEMMMMENNS!!!!!, then, finally, by a fourth, MAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRKKKKK CLLLEEEMMMENSSSS!!!!!, all in the space of about eight seconds. (How the hell they do this repeatedly without water, I don't know. Maybe that's why they often check for 'a drink' at traffic checkpoints).
SIMPLE SENSE
Empty barrels make the most noise; a justice system devoid of simple sense echoes four times.
Then there is the boorish behaviour of the judge, the two different ones I saw in action verbally flaying the helpless persons who came before them as the jackasses in the courtroom, tittered. The ones I saw giving the tongue lashings were not particularly bright, glib of tongue or quick of wit. They used their position of near absolute power in that creaking, musty courtroom to harangue and humiliate those who, generally, the Government which employs them to extract money from the public for driving on the road.
There is all this hue and cry about high profile cases of police killing, but injustice does not only happen when police can celebrate outside a courthouse while poor Jamaicans 'Kraal' on their hands and knees. It occurs systematically when dumb justices pretend that the minor cases they are seeing over are the be all and end all of legal matters and behave like swines.
Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.
