On May 27, 2010, more than 12 years ago, then High Court judge and now acting Chief Justice, Roxane George lamented that a “broken” criminal justice system was denying prisoners their rights. Her declaration in court came during jail delivery when she learnt that a number of prisoners had been languishing in prison awaiting trial.
Prison records released then showed that some prisoners had been incarcerated since 2003 awaiting trial. Prisoner Justin John was admitted into custody on May 27, 2003 after he was charged with murder. He was committed to stand trial in the High Court on June 5, 2008 and was still awaiting trial at that point. Mr John, who hailed from the South Rupununi, was among 23 prisoners who had requested an early trial and appeared before Justice George to appeal for an early date. The court was told that Mr John, 55, could not speak English at the time of his admission into the prison, but he managed to communicate in English with the judge saying he now had a limited understanding of the language.
“I ain’t ever get visitors,” he told the judge after she questioned whether relatives visit him in the prison. Justice George said then that Mr John represented what is broken in the system and she ordered that his indictment be presented in the June sessions of the Demerara Assizes. She asked the state counsel present why Mr John’s case was never presented and was informed that a few attempts were made but they failed because of the unavailability of witnesses as well as failed attempts to contact others. The judge then ordered that his case must be called at the next session, regardless of what was happening with witnesses.
She said there had been a breakdown between the High Court and the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), and the communication which formerly existed needed to be restored in the interest of the individuals who are in prison awaiting trial.
Fast forward to Friday, July 15, 2022 and the almost identical thing transpired before Justice Sandil Kissoon. Having determined that a man, who was on remand for more than nine years, had his fundamental rights under Article 144 (1) of the Constitution violated, Justice Kissoon ordered that criminal matters against him be stayed permanently and that he be released forthwith from the custody of the Guyana Prison Service.
Justice Kissoon, who had earlier said that the “unthinkable” had occurred in the case of Raymond Jones, also ordered that the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs or other relevant institutions assist the now freed man in ensuring that he journeys to his home village, Micobie, Potaro, Region Nine.
Mr Jones was accused of murdering Gary Joseph with a bow and arrow sometime between December 26 and December 27, 2012. He was remanded to prison on December 28, 2012 and had remained in jail ever since.
Justice Kissoon pointed out that Mr Jones spent nine years, six months and 18 days on remand, which is equivalent to 13 prison years. All of this occurred while he was clothed with the presumption of innocence.
Justice Kissoon told his court that in Mr Jones’ case a “grave tragedy” occurred and the injustice was not the singular cause for concern but also the “gross dereliction” that was meted out to an accused who was voiceless as he was unrepresented.
According to the judge, months after the committal and the depositions from the preliminary inquiry were sent to the office of the DPP in April of 2015, a letter was sent by the DPP to the presiding magistrate to correct “identifiable” mistakes. The judge said that having examined the directives sent to the magistrate by the DPP it raised questions about the committal by the magistrate but he noted that that was not an issue in the context of which he gave his decision on Friday. He pointed out that seven years after the directive of the DPP, the presiding magistrate, who he did not name, had failed to comply and an order in relation to the matter given by his court last year had also not been acted upon.
The legal farce deepened on Saturday when the DPP’s Chambers made the shocking disclosure that Mr John had not even been formally indicted for murder since the conclusion of the preliminary inquiry in 2015. The DPP’s Chambers seemed more concerned with underlining that the judge did not quash an indictment rather than accounting for the scandalous failure of the criminal justice system in relation to Mr Jones.
The DPP’s Chambers did say however that it wrote to the magistrate in question thrice: in 2015 – seven years ago – in October, 2020 and again in January 2021 for additional evidence to be forwarded to the Chambers for an indictment to be preferred but that this evidence was not forwarded as requested by the DPP.
Who is the recalcitrant magistrate and why wasn’t a complaint lodged by the DPP or some other stakeholder with the magistracy, judiciary or the Judicial Service Commission for gross dereliction of duty?
Fine court rooms constructed throughout this land and outfitted with the latest technologies for virtual hearings will not apparently cure the maladies afflicting the criminal justice system. There must be an urgent meeting of the Chancellor, the Chief Justice, the Chief Magistrate, the DPP and the Director of Prisons to ensure that there aren’t any other cases like those of Mr Jones in the system. There must be accountability somewhere among these varied branches of the criminal justice system to ensure that no case again falls into the netherworld of a person in prison custody for seven years without the requisite legal processes being concluded.
It is also noteworthy that both of the cases before Justices George and Kissoon were of indigenous persons who hailed from the more remote parts of the country. One wonders whether groups purporting to represent Amerindian communities and the ministry itself have been paying sufficient attention to these matters.
Also not to be ignored in this squalid state of affairs is that the family of the deceased, Mr Joseph, now has no hope of a legal resolution of this case.
Author and former prosecutor Paul Butler once said “`Criminal justice’ is what happens after a complicated series of events has gone bad. It is the end result of failure—the failure of a group of people that sometimes includes, but is never limited to, the accused person.” Seems appropriate in these circumstances.