Yvonne McCalla Sobers, ContributorI TAKE issue with views expressed in Professor Rex Nettleford's commentary, 'Justice and freedom of expression' (The Gleaner January 4, 2005). I do not share his confidence that the Jamaican justice system is serving those he termed as 'the insolently assertive masses'.
Professor Nettleford referred to my statement, made immediately after the Kraal verdict was returned, commending the jury on the length of time it deliberated. I also noted that prosecution and the defence had performed well in their roles. I had made this observation in the context of my close observation of a Jamaican justice system that remains wedded to the colonial philosophy of protecting the powerful rather than the powerless.
Where a society is split between 'us' and 'them', institutional arrangements will serve to reinforce the advantages of 'us', the dominant group. I understand institutional injustice to occur when the system, working at its best for 'us', produces miscarriages of justice for 'them'. For example, a properly constituted British court found the Guilford Four and the Maguire Seven guilty of attacks on the British public. The accused were Irish and the context was public fear of Irish bombings. Similarly, properly constituted American courts, in Jim Crow America, routinely found Ku Klux Klansmen not guilty of lynching Black Americans such as Emmett Till. In the climate of the day, whites perceived Black men as objects of fear. For that reason, also, South African Steve Biko was a victim of institutionalised injustice under the apartheid system.
For a time verdicts went predictably against the Irish in Britain, and against Black men in the U.S. and in South Africa. Juries, no matter how long they deliberated, came down on the side of the dominant values that determined that none of 'us' would be punished for harming any of 'them'. In Jamaica, verdicts have gone predictably in favour of the police, in a climate in which society identifies the police as 'us', and those police claim to confront are perceived as 'them'.
CORRECTING INSTITUTIONAL INJUSTICE
The British and the Americans have had to review their systems (admittedly with uneven results) to address institutional injustice. For example, American legislators have outlawed racism, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair has apologised to victims of miscarriages of justice in the Guilford and Maguire cases.
Blair's apology was considered essential in ending the conflict between the British and the Irish.
South Africa created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to signify a break with the institutionalised injustice of the past.
Responses to the Kraal case show the extent to which institutional injustice is entrenched in post-Independence Jamaica. For example, several newspaper columnists have said that they were convinced that murder was committed at Kraal, but equally convinced that no jury could have convicted policemen of those murders:
"It seems contradictory of me to say this, but were I a member of the jury, even knowing what I believe to be the truth, I would have voted for acquittal simply because I would be comparing the sum total of Adams with what I believe to be the sum total of the friends of Chen Chen. It is a flawed, double-standard position based mostly on a Machiavellian approach that some skulls will be inevitably broken in the building of a nation. But, of course, we are all hoping that the broken skulls will belong to some other people (Mark Wignall, The Observer December 22, 2005).
PREDICTED THAT ACCUSED WOULD BE ACQUITTED
"Even before the case came to trial, I, like just about everyone else, predicted that the accused would be acquitted. Jamaicans expected that, in spite of all the carryings on, all the hullabaloo, all the importation of Scotland Yard investigators, all the talk about planted weapons, all the highfalutin fancy modern ballistic evidence and all the buzz about supposed witnesses, the policemen would get off scot-free (and they did). (Dr Garth Rattray, The Gleaner January 3, 2006).
"I don't believe that the jury is any different from the average Jamaicans, who, though convinced of his guilt, know that we are engaged in an all-out war against criminal elements. Thus, to convict Adams would be a victory for them. In the circumstances, the persons killed, including those who many feel were not shooting at the police, given that more persons than guns were found, are 'collateral damage.'" (Dr Orville Taylor, The Gleaner December 25, 2005).
SPEAKING TRUTHS
Professor Nettleford explored an incident that, in my view, symbolised the extent of institutional injustice inside the justice system. I was in the courtroom on the day the Chief Justice threatened to arrest Dr Carolyn Gomes, shouting at her in a manner that seemed extraordinarily lacking in judicial decorum. My impression is that natural justice would have required, that, at the very least, that Dr Gomes have the opportunity to hear from the judge exactly what was her alleged offence, and then be able to explain herself. Shifts in Dr Gomes' body may have been subject to different interpretations: someone sitting behind her was convinced that Dr Gomes was doing no more than stretching a cramp out of her neck.
Persons with high intellectual pedigree, such as Professor Nettleford, could do well to help rid the Jamaican psyche of the 'bhuttoism' of the new backra who define themselves as the new 'Us'. Institutional injustice has evidently continued, post Independence, new rulers have taken their cues from traditional oppressors. In order to bring about justice, professor, perhaps we all need to start with telling the truth.
Yvonne McCalla Sobers is convenor of the civic action group Families Against State Terrorism. You can reach her at sobersy@yahoo.com.
