Dear Editor,
I write to you today in a state of profound and, I must confess, somewhat amused bewilderment. Like many of your readers, I have been following the recent political discourse with the keen interest of a spectator at a particularly convoluted play. The latest act, featuring President Ali, Justice Gino Persaud, and a certain high-performance Italian automobile, has left me scratching my head.
My confusion stems not from the complex principles of jurisprudence or the finer points of parliamentary procedure, but from a simple, everyday logic that seems to have gone absent without leave.
Editor, is it not a cornerstone of our justice system that a judge must be free from any appearance of bias? When a case involving a prominent figure like Mr. Mohamed is before the courts, would we not expect the judge to be especially circumspect in his associations? To the layman’s eye, the issue raised seemed to be about the perception of a relationship, rather than an accusation of a concrete transgression. It was, I dared to think, a point about maintaining the dignified facade of our institutions.
And yet, President Ali’s response was not to calmly affirm this principle, but to publicly “berate” the judge for even entertaining the question. This is where my puzzlement blooms like an unexpected flower in a pavement crack.
Why would the head of state, President Ali, the ultimate representative of our nation’s laws, so forcefully chastise a member of the judiciary for simply acknowledging a concern about its own integrity? It strikes one as if a ship’s captain were to angrily scold the lookout for mentioning an iceberg on the horizon, rather than, well, steering clear of it. It all leads me to a few humble questions I hope someone wiser can answer:
Is the proper protocol for handling concerns about judicial conduct now to shout them down from a political platform?
Are we to understand that certain questions are now so impertinent that even their shadow must not fall upon the halls of power?
And lastly, what ever happened to the simple, old-fashioned idea that those in the highest offices should, at the very least, act as if they have nothing to hide? Is this a case of Government’s “smoke and mirror”?
I await the clarification of my fellow citizens, legal luminaries or the government, for I fear I am simply too quizzical to understand the evolutionary new rules of the game.