Dealing with dimwits

Weeks ago, I produced a primer on how to spot a dimwit (August 30, 'Are you a dimwit?').

It's one thing to identify dimwits. It's another kettle of duncebats altogether to be able to effectively deal with them. Years of suffering The Dunce and his mantra "If a macca, mek it jook yu" around the domino table have taught me how it's done.

For example, only a dimwit (a.k.a. a wife/mother) opens the door to your dark bedroom at midnight while you're lying motionless in bed and whispers, "Are you asleep?" It means, of course, that, despite delivering more than 1,000 instructions over the past few hours (the implementing of which is why you're fatigued), she's just remembered one last command that must be immediately transmitted. How to deal with this inane preliminary query? The correct response: "No, I'm dead. Leave the flowers and get out!"

Have you ever found yourself lying on the bonnet of your car for the simple reason that you have a stubborn fixation against seat belts, as a result of which a collision with a utility pole has catapulted you through the windshield? While lying there with your mouth full of grass, you can guarantee that some dimwit will wander up to you and utter the time-honoured stupid question, "What happened?"

The next time this happens to you, here's how to answer: "Well, my friend, I was driving along minding my own business when this light post jumped out into the road and bit my car!"

Tell me the following has never happened to you. You take the Old Ball and Chain out for dinner. A waiter joins you after you've both been looking lost for a while. His first query? "Table for how many?" Finally, you know from whence the word 'dumbwaiter' originated. Don't look around wildly for her toy boy. He's not there. Try, "Beats me. I can't count that high either!"

A question of accountability

Stupid questions can be easily identified and properly deflected if only we try. This means that, if you're a public servant, whether in a constitutionally created office or not, you MUST be accountable to the Jamaican people through their elected representatives. Nobody is a law onto himself. The prime minister is a creature of our Constitution, but even he (and every other Cabinet member) must answer questions in Parliament regarding the performance of constitutional duties. No public servant can refuse to account to the Jamaican people.

Similarly, I don't know who told our precious director of public prosecutions (DPP) that she could avoid answering questions about her office; the administration of it; and even details of pending prosecutions. She must be high! She works for us. We don't work for her.

Section 94 of the Constitution gives the DPP power to:

• institute and undertake criminal proceedings against anyone;
• take over any criminal proceedings already instigated;
• discontinue any criminal proceeding.

Subsection (6) provides:

"(6) In the exercise of the powers conferred upon him by this section, the director of public prosecutions shall not be subject to the direction or control of any other person or authority."

Where does it say that the DPP can't be questioned by the equally constitutionally created authority of Parliament, which represents the persons for whom she works and who pay her salary? In what way can questions about how her office is run, or even queries about pending prosecutions, be attempts to "direct or control" her in the undertaking of any criminal proceeding? We want to know what she's doing. We're not interested in telling her what to do.

If any parliamentarian behaves so brainlessly as to ask any question that might be construed as interference with her constitutional powers, she has my permission to use this as a guide to how she should respond.

Conflict of interest? C'mon!

She has cited the fact of pending cases against sitting MPs. So what? Every accused, including parliamentarians, has the right to inspect, before trial, all the evidence the DPP has against him. I wouldn't expect Parliament to be so gauche as to ask for details of pending cases (including against sitting parliamentarians), but, if it did, that wouldn't be a constitutional breach.

Unless she's pressured to discontinue the case, nobody would be trespassing on her cherished constitutional turf. Even if she is pressured, the constitutional protection is her defence to such pressure, not a guarantee that she'll never be pressured.

Come on, DPP, learn to identify and deal with dimwits. Stop being so high and mighty. Attend the people's Parliament and answer the people's questions.

Peace and love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.