Dear Editor,
I have been telling the nation for years, now, that Hubert Ingraham is nothing more than a tin god Dictator in the class with those of “Papa Doc,” now deceased, and Mugabee of Zimbabwe who should be. Inch by inch dictators like him, supported by weasels like those around him, dismantle people’s constitutional rights while we, the people, sit around like ostriches doing nothing and pretending that all is well.
The Dictator made his appointment of “Chief Justice” knowing full well that he was not conducting himself in accordance with the acceptable standards, which have been the norm within our Westminster system of commonwealth governance for centuries. Justice must not only be done, but must also appear to be done under our system, where the three branches of government must be seen to operate at the highest level, possible, of independence.
I admire and commend the Bar Association and the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce for their registered objections to this appointment. Why does Ingraham feel that the country would allow him to appoint an FNM politician to that top judicial position, where the Chief Justice will be expected to rule on cases that come before him, impartially, when, in fact, the man owes the FNM and Ingraham his entire career, and not object? It has to be that Ingraham thinks he knows us well enough that he feels he can piss all over us and we won’t do a thing about it. In any other country, citizens would converge on Bay Street and wouldn’t move for days until the government is brought down, but Ingraham knows that we are spineless and he knows that we will only talk for a while and then shut up. He knows that he can whether our “hot air” storm by waiting it out for the two days it’ll be in the news. If Christie had done such a thing, however, the Tribune, especially, would be all over him, like white on rice, but I’ll bet you they have not one word of objection to this dictator’s decision.
No intelligent Bahamian citizen, who understands the role of our justice system and how it is suppose to function in our democracy, would support this appointment except, of course, for one Charles Ferguson who wrote a letter which was published in the Nassau Guardian, Monday 24th August, suggesting that he sees nothing wrong. It is said, somewhere, that there is none so blind as those who refuse to see and this is where I would place Mr. Ferguson-in the category of those who are too blind, politically, to see- I’ll bet any fortune (if I were a gambler) that if the PLP’s Leader would have made such an appointment, this same Mr. Ferguson, who sees nothing wrong with Ingraham appointing Mr. Bartlett, would have had the opposite view.
The country’s only hope, now, is knowing that every rope has an end and Ingraham’s rope is surely at it’s last thread-two years to go and we will do to him worse than what we did to him in 2002; trust me.
Thank you, Mr Editor.
Forrester J Carroll J.P
Freeport, Grand Bahama
25th August 2009.
