CATEGORY:COMMENTARY
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By Dr. Francis Alexis, Attorney-at-law
Inside Grenada contributor
October 21, 2006


ON 19 Oct 83 the People’s Revolutionary Government ("PRG") Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and several stalwarts of his were summarily without trial executed at Fort George (then Fort Rupert), regarding which certain revolutionary colleagues of his have since been convicted for murder . That was one of a history of events on which we must ponder as we reflect this October.

RISE AND FALL
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The rise to office of Maurice Bishop and his New Jewel Movement("NJM") turned PRG was the culmination on 13 March 1979 of their years of power struggle against Eric Gairy, settled by the extra-constitutional means of a military overthrow of the government .That extreme tyranny by a government justifies revolution by the people as a last resort of extra -constitutional necessity is established even in orthodox constitutional thinking; however controversial may be the application of that principle in a given situation.

Having thus come extra-constitutionally to power, Bishop and his PRG comrades proceeded to suspend the Constitution of Grenada, and keep it suspended even while Bishop was being executed. Bishop’s execution was over a proposal for Bishop to share in joint leadership of the PRG with Bernard Coard. Bishop agreed, and then disagreed. There was to be no compromise. There were to be the executions and a 24 -hour shoot-on-sight curfew. This was "totalitarianism", meaning "total intolerance".

The executions numbed the region, and beyond, in chilling shock waves. Seizing the opportunity, US President Ronald Reagan on 25 Oct 83 mounted a US-led multi-national military mission to rescue Grenada from the executioners. This mission marked the fall of the revolution, and opened the road to the return to freedom and democracy under the restored Constitution, a story classically told by Sir Paul Scoon SURVIVAL FOR SERVICE (2003).


LESSONS LEARNED
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Several lessons emerge from the story of Grenada 1973-1983. Thus, in human affairs, no condition is permanent, except change; so, while the PRG, shouting "Forward Ever! Backward Never!” may have believed the teaching that communism is irreversible; the Grenada story disproved that at home and abroad. Again, people may take so much and no more, until they bare their chests to bayonets and cannons.

Further, totalitarianism (total intolerance) is colour blind; it comes red from the left with communism; and in other shades even under parliamentary democracy; for tyranny may fester wherever indolence displaces vigilance. Moreover, rulers bent on total intolerance give signs of this by their relentless attacks on whoever expresses views which the rulers dislike; witness how the press was terrorized under both Gairy and Bishop.


THAT IS ATTACKING
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With all such lessons in mind, we note events today in Grenada. Often when a High Court Judge rules against the NNP Government, either the Attorney-General the principal legal adviser to Government or the special legal adviser to Cabinet makes public comments capable of being understood as accusing the Judge of being biased against the Government. The special legal adviser to the Cabinet actually uses the word bias.

The A-G spoke about expecting the procedure he used against Peter David to have been rejected by the Judge; he did not use the word bias; and he said he was not attacking the Judiciary. But surely, in context, that is precisely what he was doing. Amidst all this, a Judge in Grenada is not paid his salary in time, repeatedly; as revealed publicly by the special legal adviser to Cabinet.


GROUNDLESSLY
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Bias in a Judge is perverseness, corruption, the essence of moral turpitude. So a Lawyer, especially a Law Officer of the Crown, should never accuse a Judge of bias wholly groundlessly, without any foundation whatsoever, let alone repeatedly so.

This insinuation by those two Government Lawyers that the Judges habitually rule against Government is groundless. Baptiste J. gave NNP the green light to go ahead and use the Green Bridge land for works for cricket world cup. Baptiste J. refused to tell Commissioner Cheltenham how to exercise his discretion in the Mitchell-Resteiner money inquiry. Benjamin J. ordered Michael Baptiste to pay Yolande Bain-Horsford substantial damages for libel.

We cannot know for sure what is in the mind of those two Government Lawyers in making such demonstrably unfounded allegations against the Judges. What we do know is that those allegations are capable of being seen as intimidatory in nature, in which Government views are to prevail always, despite the Constitution. This comes from naked intolerance.

LAST BASTION
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If it seems that the Executive is intent on intimidating the Judiciary, the people would be driven to despair. For of all the institutions of State, the Judiciary is the last bastion of justice and freedom. It is therefore crucial that it does not appear that the Government is intimidating the Judiciary into always ruling for the Government against the governed no matter what. The Court must always be, and seen to be, a forum for the just and orderly settlement of disputes between Government and the governed. Otherwise, anarchy hovers.

We cannot afford street justice. The Judiciary best mirrors the sacrosanctity of the Constitution; so, if terrorizing the press is venal, intimidating the Judiciary is mortal. Baseless governmental attacks on Judges come from ingrained intolerance. Such intolerance ought not to be directed at the Judiciary. When intolerance goes so far, then, on the recent history of Grenada, the resulting fall might be cataclysmic. This lesson of October 1983 needs to be restated. Lest we forget.