Who steals my purse steals trash
Posted: Saturday, May 10, 2003
by Kim Johnson
Was the apology offered to former Chief Justice Michael de la Bastide below last week's Sunday Guardian Editorial sufficiently obsequious?
Criticism of de la Bastide's refusal to hear appeals filed late by the prison authorities was admitted to be "totally unwarranted and without foundation," and unreservedly withdrawn.
After all, it was penned by him.
But perhaps St Michael TC, QC, a highly successful lawyer who was Chief Justice for a few years, was just being modest. Maybe he deserved an additional dollop of grovelling to sweeten his Sunday breakfast.
As the man himself pointed out, his rejection of Rickey Bernard, Julien Trim and Rufus Patrice's late-filed appeals amounted to a good deed.
Had the appeals been heard and dismissed those three stooges would have had to now begin their sentences forthwith. Presumably they were in jail all the while.
How untrue and unfair to cast aspersions on such Solomonic leniency!
Ahem. Has it occurred to anyone that starting an incarcerated man's sentence from the time he loses his appeal, makes appealing a punishable offence?
And a severe one here where appeals can take years to be heard.
But that's beside the point; the reasoning of an idle layman not privy to the higher understanding of luminaries such as are found on the Bench or even in our well-stocked Bar.
And that's why you cock your snout at the law at your considerable peril.
Such learned men could hardly be expected to subscribe to the homespun aphorism that sticks and stones may break my bones but…
Once upon a time in 1934 the Privy Council upheld an appeal with Lord Atkin's sonorous words: "Justice is not a cloistered virtue: she must be allowed to suffer the scrutiny and respectful, even though outspoken, comments of ordinary men."
Lord Atkin was upholding the rights of my daughter's great-grandfather, Arthur Raymond, a journalist.
Alas, nowadays such ordinary men have fallen in status. (Women too, although, as they say, a cat may look at a king.) And no one has more shares in ordinariness than a journalist, who scrutinises Lady Justice's linen on behalf of John Ordinary.
To show how easily ordinary men are excluded from Justice's cloister, Justice Melville Baird recently gagged journalists from informing all and Sunday of the dog's dinner he'd made of the Dhanraj Singh trial.
The same dirty gag Justice Lionel Jones used years ago to prevent reports that Maurice Levi had turned state witness against Dole Chadee.
Mirror editor Ken Ali disobeyed the order and spent a night in jail.
Even without a court order you can earn a weekend in the Frederick Street hotel by "scandalising the court," that is, saying scandalous if true things about it, as Patrick "Judge's Wife" Chokolingo once did.
Such examples are rare, largely because only those on the Bench wield the power to swiftly compel the appropriate degree of public bowing and scraping.
The remaining high and mighty rely instead on defamation laws, which are slower but nevertheless pack a mean wallop.
Who other than Basdeo Panday wouldn't think twice at running the risk of being sued for, say, $200,000 in damages plus more in costs?
No wonder the Sunday Guardian squeaked, immediately prostrated itself and begged forgiveness at a mere glance cast sternly by Mr de la Bastide:
"Hopefully it will not be necessary for me to consider resort to legal action in this matter."
Oh no Baas! Please don't consider resort. I surrender! Peace! Pax!
That is as it should be. After all, you can't be allowed to disparage the rich and powerful just so. As Shakespeare wrote in Othello, and as every learned libel lawyer knows: "Good name in man and woman's dear, my lord; Is the immediate jewel of our souls: Who steals my purse, steals trash, 'tis something, nothing, 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands: But he that filches from me my good name, Robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed."
Eh? Sounds to me like a scam.
It goes beyond lay understanding how trashy are the purses of men who without breaking sweat can earn more in a week than ordinary men in a year.
It might have something to do with a fact that's never mentioned, that the Shakespeare quote comes from the mouth of Iago, one of the worst scoundrels in literature.
The hack's cringing incomprehension at his lowly status is shared by the doctors in the regional health authorities. Their purses too, though not quite microscopic, are smaller than even middling lawyers.
How come? How is the social value of a profession weighted? Surely the choice between health and wealth is no choice.
Is a good doctor or - let's be extreme for the sake of argument - a good teacher or even, God forbid, a good journalist, worth less than a bad lawyer?
A sound education must indeed have fallen in value too, along with its handmaiden, intelligent public discourse.
And as for the doctors in the public service, posh people prefer to go to private clinics anyway, or even abroad, and there's no sense in wasting taxpayer's money on the hoi polloi.
There's no getting away from it, the market rules. But I still don't see how that translates wealth into virtue.
Kim Johnson writes for the Guardian/TT
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