THE OPPOSITION IS NOT GOING TO HOLD THE POLICE ACCOUNTABLE FOR WHAT HAPPENED IN LINDEN
March 6, 2013, By KNews, Filed Under Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom, Source
Imagine that you lose something from your yard. You do not know who took it, but you were told that a certain character was seen leaving the yard and he was the only one that left the yard.
While you may not be able to prove that this individual was the one who took the item, you would suspect that it had to be him and therefore would want to hold him responsible for the disappearance of the item.
This is the same type of reasoning that was employed by the Commission of Inquiry into the events of July 18, 2012, at Linden, which led to the deaths of three individuals.
The Commission could not prove who fired the shots that led to the deaths of the men. But based on the evidence led, the police were seen on the scene with weapons and had used those weapons. No ballistic tests, however, could link the police to the actual shots that killed the men. And as such, it cannot be proven that the police killed the men. However, the Commission reasoned that since the police were the only ones seen with weapons, then the fatal shots had to have been fired by them. As such, the police were believed to have been responsible, but the Commission could not prove this, they could only express a belief.
That sort of conclusion is not going to hold up in any criminal prosecution of anyone where the standard of proof is beyond reasonable doubt. But it may hold up in civil proceedings, where there is a mere requirement of proof, based on a balance of probabilities.
The Commission has made some “awards” which are really recommended because the commission was only required to recommend. And these sums have been criticized as being too low. It must however be noted that these awards were made by eminent jurists who would have been familiar with how the courts arrive at compensation in similar cases.
Usually in making an assessment about such matters, the courts would consider a number of factors: the age of the person and their earnings at the time of their deaths. While the individual sum of three million which was recommended may seem low, given that the police cannot be held legally liable for the deaths, then the awards may not have been that low after all.
And an additional factor to consider is that the commission could not have awarded exemplary damages, because it could not prove that the police shot the three men. Had exemplary damages been considered, the sums awarded would have been significantly higher. Those damages, however, were never really possible considering what took place on July 18, last, when there was a stand-off between the protesters and the police.
In the report itself there were serious criticisms about internal procedures within the Guyana Police Force and certain recommendations were made, including the need for a management audit. The commission seemed to be leaning in the direction that there were operational deficiencies within the police force and while these did not lead to the deaths of the men, they did frustrate a thorough investigation.
The problem of management and operational deficiencies cannot be laid at the feet of the policy-making because policy makers are not responsible for these problems. Yet the opposition in this country wanted the neck of the Home Affairs Minister.
They passed a motion after the unrest and demanded the resignation of the minister. Yet, they never at any stage called for anyone in the hierarchy of the police force to be held responsible. They wanted to jump several levels and go straight to the persons who hold no operational responsibility.
And you can bet that despite the deficiencies pointed out in the report of the Commission of Inquiry that they are not going to demand the neck of anyone in the Guyana Police Force. They will continue to insist that the minister should go.