Grenada - The Tragedies of October, 1983

1. Bernard Coard and his fellow sixteen political prisoners have been imprisoned for fifteen years, following what many see as a scandalously unfair trial and appeal for the murder of Prime Minister Bishop and ten other persons.



2. It is now eight (8) years since the appeal court, headed by Sir Frederick Smith of Barbados, orally upheld the conviction of the seventeen. Up to today these so-called legal luminous have not delivered the written judgement despite many requests by the defendants and their lawyers. This is the final violation of basic judicial rights in this case.



3. Why this refusal to deliver a written judgement? In an astonishing piece of reporting, The Grenadian Voice newspaper, dated Saturday, 16 May 1998, explained this burning issue under the headline "No Appeal Judgement without payment." According to this article, the now retired Sir Frederick Smith of Barbados confirmed, "that this indeed was the case" when he was interviewed by telephone. The article continues, and I quote; "He said that he had a letter from the then Prime Minister Nicholas Brathwaite promising to pay him US$100,000.00 and the other justices US$80,000.00 each for their work, but not all at once." They each completed their allotted task…." "However, they were not prepared to turn them over until the financial commitment had been fulfilled."



4. There seems to be something inherently wrong with the above and this begs many questions. Does not the refusal to deliver the written judgement without payment compromises the integrity of Sir Frederick Smith's court and ultimately its decisions? Is there some form of conspiracy to frustrate the cause of justice? Were the judges paid to do a hatchet job? Are we, as Caribbean people, to assume that payment is necessary for judgement to be given in political cases? Is this not a very dangerous precedent being set by Sir Frederick and his counterparts? Could their refusal to present a written judgement be because there is no way they can justify the convictions in writing in the light of what many saw as a grossly unfair trial? Is this part of a ploy to prevent this matter from reaching the Privy Council?



5. In fact several eminent British, American and Caribbean lawyers who have studied the case closely, believe that a written judgement can never stand the scrutiny of judges, lawyers and legal researchers and students all over the world.



6. It must be noted that the same Sir Frederick Smith, a few years ago, as a member of the Appeal court of Barbados, chastised supreme court judges for letting as many as four years pass before delivering their written judgements. He even threatened to squash the verdicts in such cases! Yet eight years after his own oral judgement in the case of Bernard Coard and others, he has delivered no written judgement. This is a murder case, which has resulted in 17 persons, including Grenada's former Deputy Prime Minister and other political, and trade union leaders, being sentenced to hang!



7. His fellow appeal court judge, Justice McKay of Guyana, is apparently also satisfied that no written judgement shall be submitted. The third judge, Justice Tim Kendal of Antigua, has since died before he could collect the fees promised to him for delivering the written judgement. Are the power brokers behind the scenes hoping that the other judges are going to die too before delivering their written judgement in this the most historic murder case in the entire history of the Caribbean?



8. What kind of examples are Sir Frederick Smith and his colleagues leaving for law students of the Caribbean? The continued imprisonment of the seventeen in the absence of a written verdict, while legally admissible, is clearly morally indefensible.



9. It is particularly indefensible in the light of the fact that the right of the 17 to appeal to the British Privy Council (Grenada's final court of appeal) was denied, by deliberately not restoring Grenada's constitutional court until immediately after the Grenada 17 case was completed.



10. In addition, when the case was completed the Grenada Government immediately passed an act in parliament that disallowed the right of appeal to the Privy Council to cases tried before the restoration of the constitutional court!



11. There is no doubt that it was the intention of the Eastern Caribbean Governments to specifically deny the 17 an appeal to the Privy Council. This was shown clearly when, on the March 22, 1988, the then Chairman of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), Prime Minister Compton of St. Lucia, wrote to the then Prime Minister Blaize of Grenada confirming the decision of all the OECS Governments, that the constitutional court of the OECS would not be restored in Grenada until "The Maurice Bishop Murder case" was completed.



12. This letter of Prime Minister Compton was used by the prosecution to justify the appeal being heard by an unconstitutional court! Could there be a clearer example of naked politically motivated legal discrimination against political defendants?



13. Could the legal maneuvering, to prevent the 17 appealing to the British Privy Council, have anything to do with the fact its judges are not for sale?