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EDITORIAL - Change the law, Yes; Revisionism, No
Published: Wednesday | November 17, 2010
We assume that it is the interception of communication, or wiretap law, that Prime Minister Bruce Golding proposes to amend so as to avoid, he says, the kind of stand-off his government engaged in with the United States over the Christopher Coke extradition.
Maybe what Mr Golding has in mind will do some good, by making the rules so pellucid that politicians will not, in the future, be tempted to take unto themselves the role of arbiters of the law. That properly belongs to judges in courts of law.
We, nonetheless, would wish to remind the prime minister that the Coke-Manatt-Tivoli Gardens affair is too recent for what seems to be an attempt at revisionism.
Mr Golding told delegates of his Jamaica Labour Party on Sunday that his Government stalled America's extradition of Coke, an alleged narcotics trafficker and gunrunner, because the United States had, in its request, breached Jamaican law "for which no remedy existed within the law and ... within the court".
What, curiously, Mr Golding seems to have forgotten is that the matter was not tested in the forum where it ought, properly, to have been - the court. We have to take it on his say-so that no remedy existed there.
The fact, though, is that the opportunity for this was appropriated by Mr Golding and his attorney general, Dorothy Lightbourne, who, between them, decided that Coke's constitutional right, with regard to the handling of intercepted information, was breached. The basis of America's extradition request, they insisted, was therefore flawed.
Coke's case weakened
Sadly, Coke was denied the opportunity to make the case for himself, given the administration's expropriation of the job of his defence lawyers, which was exacerbated by the Government's/ruling party's hiring of lobbyists to keep the Americans at bay.
Perhaps Mr Golding has forgotten that. But the prime minister eventually ordered that the extradition order be signed and apologised to the Jamaican people for his behaviour in the affair.
We doubt that its intent is to retract that apology.
Here is a suggestion to Mr Golding: He should no longer make statements attempting to justify or parse his behaviour in the Coke affair. He should wait for the commission of inquiry and just tell the truth.
Published: Wednesday | November 17, 2010
We assume that it is the interception of communication, or wiretap law, that Prime Minister Bruce Golding proposes to amend so as to avoid, he says, the kind of stand-off his government engaged in with the United States over the Christopher Coke extradition.
Maybe what Mr Golding has in mind will do some good, by making the rules so pellucid that politicians will not, in the future, be tempted to take unto themselves the role of arbiters of the law. That properly belongs to judges in courts of law.
We, nonetheless, would wish to remind the prime minister that the Coke-Manatt-Tivoli Gardens affair is too recent for what seems to be an attempt at revisionism.
Mr Golding told delegates of his Jamaica Labour Party on Sunday that his Government stalled America's extradition of Coke, an alleged narcotics trafficker and gunrunner, because the United States had, in its request, breached Jamaican law "for which no remedy existed within the law and ... within the court".
What, curiously, Mr Golding seems to have forgotten is that the matter was not tested in the forum where it ought, properly, to have been - the court. We have to take it on his say-so that no remedy existed there.
The fact, though, is that the opportunity for this was appropriated by Mr Golding and his attorney general, Dorothy Lightbourne, who, between them, decided that Coke's constitutional right, with regard to the handling of intercepted information, was breached. The basis of America's extradition request, they insisted, was therefore flawed.
Coke's case weakened
Sadly, Coke was denied the opportunity to make the case for himself, given the administration's expropriation of the job of his defence lawyers, which was exacerbated by the Government's/ruling party's hiring of lobbyists to keep the Americans at bay.
Perhaps Mr Golding has forgotten that. But the prime minister eventually ordered that the extradition order be signed and apologised to the Jamaican people for his behaviour in the affair.
We doubt that its intent is to retract that apology.
Here is a suggestion to Mr Golding: He should no longer make statements attempting to justify or parse his behaviour in the Coke affair. He should wait for the commission of inquiry and just tell the truth.
