The news that a lawyer was “temporarily remanded…over his failure to submit promised evidence…[and] spent a few minutes in the holding area for prisoners on Wednesday” (SN September 30) is indeed disturbing. Police Legal Adviser Mandel Moore had failed on several occasions to provide a video to a Magistrates’ Court presided over by Magistrate Leron Daly, who had taken the action against him, as reported by SN. This is a rare case of a lawyer being “remanded.” But threats to ‘jail’ lawyers by those who purport to dispense justice are not isolated occurrences. It occurs with frightening regularity for trivial reasons. Lawyers, especially young lawyers, are unlikely to confront legal rulings in the course of a trial or ask a magistrate or judge to recuse himself or herself for bias or the appearance of bias, for fear of a charge of contempt in the face of the court and imprisonment. This is based on living experiences.
