Judicious Mistakes...

Of all the issues clamoring for our attention this week the one that deserves the most mindshare and concern is the case of Rajendra Krishna who the Privy Council freed after 27 years in jail for murder, convicted through some questionable circumstances not ignored by the Law Lords. A series of errors, committed by the judge while addressing jurors considering the evidence in a murder case in the 1980s, was the reason given by the Privy Council last week for ordering the immediate release of convict Rajendra Krishna from prison.

Forcing us again to return to the question of if we are mature enough for a Caribbean Court of Justice as our final appellate, and to this writer, if it is to be populated by people of the ilk that dismissed Mr. Krishna's local appeal then to me the answer is a resounding no. How could we be, when the very Privy Council noted it had been impossible to obtain a copy of the Court of Appeal's reasons "if indeed they ever delivered a reasoned judgment". What an indictment and begs many questions of the situation under which this man's appeal was heard by Justices of Appeal Sat Sharma, Lloyd Gopeesingh and Zainool Hosein and any others like it.

Reading like a made up story of terribly unfortunate circumstances, Krishna was 21 years old when arrested and charged with the murder of Mycee Jagmohan, who was shot and killed on May 26, 1984.

In January 1988, he was convicted in the San Fernando High Court before Justice Conrad Douglin but his co-accused, Fazal Hosein, was freed, based on the evidence of Krishendeth Bissoon who was implicated in the crime but turned State witness. The then Appeal Court dismissed Krishna's appeal against sentence in 1995 which prompted the Law Lord's questions.

[From the Express]

Krishna claimed during the trial that he was pushed through a window at the police station and cut across the throat by a police investigator to force him to sign a statement implicating him in the killing.

Krishna, whose defence was that he was asleep at home at the time of the killing, also claimed that a police officer later pushed his thumb into his eye, and forced him to sign the statement. The admissibility of the statement implicating Krishna was the subject of a voir dire (trial within a trial) during his murder trial and Justice Douglin ruled it was given voluntarily.

The Privy Council found Douglin said too much when he told the jury about allowing the statement.

The Law Lords also found the judge's ruling on the evidence of star witness Bissoon was wrong and the judge should have reminded the jury of the evidence that tended to show that Bissoon was an accomplice.

"Strong though the evidence against (Krishna) was, (the Privy Council) is unable to conclude that the jury would have inevitably convicted (Krishna) if these irregularities had not occurred," the judgment states.

[END]

How do we compensate a man for 27 years of his young life wasted due to the incompetence and outright misbehavior of others?

Are we so contemptuous of each as to allow this sort of judicial malpractice to go unexamined or indeed, unpunished?

This travesty of justice was compounded by the dismissal by the Court of Appeal, and had it not been for the Privy Council this man would have surely lived out his life and died in prison. Of all the questions that immediately come to mind out of this situation is how many more like Krishna are languishing in our penal system, themselves victims of a system gone wrong and powerless to extricate themselves from it?

There can be no greater injustice against any human being than the use of State power to do them harm. In this case the State through its judicial arm failed this man terribly and shamed us all. It also further set aside any notion that we are in a position to regulate our own judgements, and I fear we are a long way away from the day when we could.