RACE TO THE FINISH

I had cut out the photo on page three of Thursday’s Newsday, the one of Chief Justice Sat Sharma at Hector Mc Clean’s funeral, and with a thick pencil, was etching short tight curls over his straight grey hair. Why not? I wasn’t seeking to pappy show the CJ, but didn’t every issue of national importance get entangled in race? I was redecorating the CJ’s slick cranium with a mass of tiny taut coils because I was trying to imagine how many of the people now fighting tooth and nail for him would instead be calling for his head if this were covered in curls. One person I could not picture running up to President’s House to plead the case of an Afro-Trini Chief Justice was Sat Maharaj. Could you? I also wondered what Sat and company wanted the President to do if asked by the Prime Minister to appoint a tribunal to investigate the conduct of the CJ. Reply, “Not me Patrick, the CJ is an Indo-Trini. I ain’t touching this one with a ten-foot pole.”?

As I gazed at the photo of the CJ that I was retouching, I also questioned what Sat Maharaj and his fellow alarmists expected the PM to do on receipt of the letters from the Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecutions. Call them in and demand, “Are you mad? You want me to reply to these concerns? You see a fro on the CJ? Not me and this!”? Could Sat Maharaj and those of his ilk not see past their race long enough to observe that Patrick Manning had no choice but to respond to both men’s charges by writing to the CJ, even if the PM’s moral authority to so do was weakened by his past incursions into territory where he should never have tread.

No, Sat would never forget long enough he was an Indo-Trini to detect that the Prime Minister had not acted hastily or unfairly in this matter, but according to the Constitution. Sat’s bias would never let him conclude that the Manning administration could not be realistically accused of wanting to control the judiciary, not an administration which had indicated it intended to exclude judges from having to declare their assets, interests and liabilities under the Integrity in Public Life Act, 2000. There was something else that I wondered about as I contemplated the photo of the CJ. I wanted to know why the President afforded Sat Maharaj an audience at all. If it were me I would have told Sat to leave his letter by the gate.

I wouldn’t be giving an hour, or a minute for that matter, to a man who loves to stir the race pot at every turn (remember his comments on Kalifa Logan’s hair), to a man who relishes the limelight and thus, finds himself at the centre of every controversy, and to a man who has his own axe to grind since the Government turned down his application for a radio station. Like Max didn’t realise that by receiving Maharaj he conferred on him, authority he neither deserves nor possesses in this CJ controversy and that he automatically gave legitimacy to Maharaj’s bogus assertion that any probe of the CJ would lead to internecine conflict. Like the President forgot Carnival is over and thus it was not the season for listening to robber talk.

Nonsensical talk of racial violence aside; I was equally confused last Thursday by the suggestion that the media should take a hands off approach to this issue. What should we do? Pretend that we did not know what is going on? Lie to the public? In my view, our only option was to cover this story as accurately and fairly as possible. But, we should not be condemned for publishing leaks as we were by UNC Senator Wade Mark last week, who ironically was the first person to raise the issue of a plot to remove the CJ based on what he said was information leaked to him. Mark’s self-righteous attitude was even more difficult to stomach when one considered the spats the UNC had in its tenure with then CJ Michael de la Bastide. I was just as mystified last week by the general sentiment that the judiciary is a sacred cow, and thus, above investigation and/or reproach. Were such the case, then the Constitution would have been silent on procedures for removing a judge, including a Chief Justice from office.

It could only be argued that the process for the impeachment of a CJ as prescribed by the TT Constitution might be flawed, not that it was dangerous for a CJ’s actions to be investigated and if these were deemed improper for him to be removed from office. We, the people, could not and should not however, bury our heads in the sand and pretend that nothing was going on in the judiciary; that it was business as usual. Nor could we allow ourselves to be panicked by a few with questionable agendas into believing the poppycock they were selling: that we were not mature enough to deal with serious constitutional and political matters or that an inquiry into the CJ would spark racial war.

When the UNC came to power we were warned there would be turmoil between this country’s two main races. There was no conflict. When the UNC was removed from office, more trouble was predicted. None came even though Basdeo Panday has been trying to whip his constituency into civil disobedience for years now. His cries have been met with indifference. What makes people like Sat Maharaj think that there would be rioting in the streets if the Prime Minister asks the President for a full-fledged probe into the head of the judiciary when no one fought for the head of the UNC?

Rather, evading dealing with this matter may pose more of a threat to TT’s stability since people here believe in the old legal saying, “Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught,” more than they do in any theory of “justice according to ethnicity.” Think about that one Sat and company. If you aren’t too blinded by race to see the point.
suz@itrini.com