I am one who firmly believes that one should speak within their frame of competence, but I believe there are times when one has to express concern on matters of national importance. I listened to Mr. Richelieu, the lawyer for Hon. Mondesir, speaking of his concerns on the issue of jurisprudence. He made an important point that there is need to separate the law from the politics in this case.
Law is based on precedent, a complete distinction from engineering, and while I have an intense interest in law, I can only be described as a ‘bush lawyer’. A ‘bush lawyer’ that will never understand why the law says that someone found with an illegal firearm should be punished the same as a man caught stealing a bunch of bananas. I will never understand why lawyers are keen to defend the rights of those who have brutally murdered innocent women and children and have never gone to a victim to defend their rights. Why have we not seen the human rights lawyers present a civil lawsuit for the family of a victim of violence? If it is the interest of the law then the victim has rights under the law. It is a bafflement to me.
This ‘bush lawyer’ is concerned about the precedent that this judgement creates. There is a real possibility that our country could be shut down within the courts if every Cabinet decision is challenged on the grounds of unreasonableness.
This judgment is undoubtedly an expansion of the powers of the court and a significant judicial intrusion into the St. Lucian Cabinet. Can the OECS as a group of small islands with a peculiar history and culture sustain this intrusion? This is the larger issue at stake, and the constitutional lawyers will have to intervene to determine whether this is desirable.
In the West Indian society we must accept that there are times favours are granted by the ruling party to either a supporter or financier. This is the harsh reality we must face, and these favours are generated by Cabinet Conclusions. Many of them can be described as unreasonable, yet these conclusions may not break any law or challenge the constitution.
We have to ask ourselves whether the court should decide on the unreasonableness of the Cabinet of Ministers or should the voting public be left to pass judgement. This has nothing to do with political parties, this goes to the core of governance of our state.
I recently read an interesting article which discussed how the Australian courts have developed over the past decades. Australia follows the Constitutional model and thus the court has the authority to overrule the Parliament. With the Constitutional model the parliament cannot be supreme and judges can make decisions as long as they are in the constitutional limits. The Parliament model says the parliament is supreme and cannot be challenged. The article referred to the major judicialization of politics in Australia since the 1990’s.
We need to ask ourselves where policy making and law making should be left. I do not think we have matured as a nation to hand over to the judiciary. John Public needs to be assured that this decision does not set a precedent for frivolous journeys to the courts to challenge Cabinet decisions in the future, which ever party is in power.
I am no position to discuss the merits of the case as this will be dealt with by the real lawyers; my position is the effect of the reason for quashing the Cabinet Conclusion as precedent setting. What decisions in the future will fall under the heading as having ‘’arrived at without any reasonable basis”.
Let us go beyond the boundaries of party politics and examine carefully where we want o go as a nation. Mr. Richelieu is quite correct, this is beyond politics, there are far reaching implications of this decision for every government in the future.