Her Majesty’s pleasure

JUST over a month ago we appealed to the President for the release of a prisoner who had been languishing behind bars for 32 years, after being found guilty of murder at the age of 17 and sent to jail “at Her Majesty’s pleasure” because he was deemed to be insane at the time. The fact is that Felix James, the country’s longest serving prisoner, had become lost in the prison system in spite of his commendable conduct and the many times he attempted to bring his case to the attention of the authorities. In our view, being sentenced to prison “at Her Majesty’s pleasure” could hardly mean a lifetime in jail and, given all the relevant circumstances, it now seems an injustice for the State to keep James locked up for any longer period of time. It is quite anomalous, in fact, for the Government to be actively introducing a parole system and laying emphasis on a policy of rehabilitation while the authorities turn a blind eye to James’ plight.

Last Saturday, however, we became more optimistic over James’ situation with the release of another prisoner, John Lewis, who has also spent a long time in prison at “Her Majesty’s pleasure.” Twenty eight years ago, Lewis was convicted for murder before Justice Ulric Cross but he was also deemed insane. Like James, Lewis met with the same consistent rejection as he sought over the years to have his case reviewed by the authorities. He submitted requests to see the Commissioner of Prisons but, he said, “they never got past the Superintendent.” Lewis kept hoping that at Independence he would be among those long-serving prisoners being granted pardons and released, but his name never came up. Finally, out of desperation, Lewis wrote to two young attorneys, Mark Seepersad and Gerald Ramdeen, who took up his case, filing a constitutional motion which challenged his continued detention. Apparently spurred by this court action, the Mercy Committee recommended a pardon for Lewis which was formally granted by President Richards last Friday, two days before his motion came up for hearing.

We expect that the Court will now deal with this action urgently, particularly since it is the first of its kind, dealing with the validity of imprisoning persons for such long periods  at “at Her Majesty’s (now President’s) pleasure.”  Indeed, it seems to us that if these two young attorneys had not decided to champion the cause of prisoners jailed for such long periods under these amorphous circumstances, bringing their cases into public attention, then they would continue to languish behind bars, lost and forgotten in an insensitive penal system. Since the authorities must uphold the principle of equality before the law, we expect that they will now proceed to review all the cases of persons jailed “at Her Majesty’s pleasure” — or, since TT became a republic, the “President’s pleasure — and treat them in the same way as they did with John Lewis. Certainly justice would now demand that Felix James, in prison longer than anybody else, be released forthwith. James who fatally stabbed his girlfriend in a fit of rage when he was a teenager has been incarcerated for more than three decades, in fact four years longer than Lewis. James’ cause is bolstered by the commendation he received for bravery at Carrera in 1991 and his good behaviour which resulted in his appointment as an assistant orderly at the prison. If prisoners convicted for cold-blooded murders can be released at Independence, then the case for freeing James and others like him must be compelling.