Freedom Come Rain

Some eight years ago, Jamaicans were adamant that the nation’s students needed to be pushed away from pursuing careers in law as there were not enough jobs for the flood of law school graduates each year. New lawyers, with hefty student loan bills, were forced to migrate or settle for menial positions, earning peppercorn salaries at best. Today, we are in the season for suits, and people are lawyering up here, there, and everywhere. It is a wonderful windfall of work for legal luminaries. Like a shotgun, lawyers are being placed on cock, ready to protect pulverised reputations, shield the guilty, and shut down truths. Social media has flung the gates wide open; every claptrap is fair game. Everyone is speaking their minds, whether they are good or bad, mindless of the costs. Sticks and stones may break bones, but the words released for thousands of views on social media can break relationships, reputations, and bank accounts. Some people cast their toughest stones in the social media pig pen in the crudest and most unsavoury fashion with little care which of the proverbial hogs gets hit. Amid the uncertainties surrounding the parliamentary leadership in light of Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ uncertified statutory declarations and the continued illicit enrichment investigations of seven other members of Parliament who are yet to be named, every politician is lawyering up. The threat of a lawsuit is the whip against concerned citizens and critics alike. Let it be clear: attorneys play a very important role in society. They ensure justice is served while protecting the legal rights of all parties involved in a matter. Threatening and even initiating legal action is the right of every citizen who feels they have been wronged by individuals, organisations, or even the state. It is also a favoured calling card guilty people engage to muzzle opposing voices and even buy time to change the narrative, if not the facts. The heavy caseload of the local court system is clogged and bursting at the seams, with too many cases seeking to muzzle opponents rather than the pursuit of any real form of justice. It was 2016 when Jamaicans thought that too many lawyers were in the system. Eight of the nation’s politicians were not yet under investigation for illicit enrichment. Track star Usain Bolt’s money had not yet been discovered missing in the massive fraud at Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL). At the time, social media was popular, but its real proliferation took place four years later, during the plandemic. Students were still in face-to-face classes and were kept offline for the better part of the day, and churches were up and running for the most part. At the time, the Director of the Labour Market Research and Intelligence Department at the Heart/Trust NTA, Allison Birch, was arguing that the career of law was one of those having a surplus of persons. Then Chief Executive Officer of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, Dennis Chung, was also of the view that too many people were embarking on studies in crowded fields where there are just no jobs for them when they leave school. Chung also believed that the Students' Loan Bureau's policy for lending money needed to be adjusted as too many people were studying business administration and law. But senior attorney and former Jamaican Ambassador to the United States Stephen Vasciannie, at that time, argued that the assumption of an oversupply of lawyers does not deep dive into the truth, as there could be too many lawyers on Duke Street, Kingston, but not enough in other parts of Jamaica. He further said that the Jamaican court system has not kept apace with the heavy caseload, and litigants have to wait for years to have civil matters addressed. But that was then. Today, lawyers earn lucrative salaries by just threatening or initiating suits to protect someone’s real or imagined reputation. Media has a tendency to report these frivolous threats as if they are real news, as if the person, usually a politician, who is issuing the threat is not just seeking to block public scrutiny. Those who offer themselves for public office must know that uneasy is the head that wears the crown. And when claims of defamation are considered, political figures and public officials should be subject to greater public scrutiny and criticism than others. Their decisions impact populations, not just themselves and their dependents. Any trained journalist knows that guilty persons generally use lawsuits to shut down stories, investigations, and commentaries and even force reporters out of their jobs. The threat of libel suits puts reporters on caution and delays any detailed examination of the accused or government action. The person who is guilty of an offence knows exactly where their guilt lies and the full extent and true complexion of their infraction. At a time when the nation needs the unbridled, unadulterated truth, too many in the political class are busy blocking vital discourse with frivolous threats of lawsuits. What these leaders need to understand is that even if talk is kept out of the social media space, the plummeting level of trust between them and the electorate is perhaps at the lowest it has even been. Lawsuits will not stop the Jamaican people from looking through a glass darkly at the roadblocks that are being mounted to keep them separated from the truth. The nation was recently shaken when news emerged that Prime Minister Andrew Holness had lawyered up and is asking the court to strike out aspects of the Integrity Commission Act and to set aside the report on his uncertified statutory declarations. Since the Integrity Commission, after three years of probing, and even with the help of an international sleuth, still needs additional eyes to look into the matter, perhaps the prime minister should just provide the nation with the answers to the burning questions and bring the matter to a close once and for all. The Integrity Commission Act was a far-reaching piece of legislation that was well-needed to address the mountain of corruption that the nation was facing up to 2017. That mountain is yet to be moved. By now, the prime minister must recognise that even if he gets some pyrrhic victory after fighting the agency that is tasked with fighting corruption, this will not settle the matter in the court of public opinion where more than 2.8 million village lawyers practise. It is best he level with the people who elected him to office. A prime-time press conference or national broadcast can suffice. But even as the prime minister ponders his next move, he is reminded that the Sovereign God, who rules and reigns in the highest court of heaven is the Supreme judge and lawgiver. He knows all things and will determine the end of all things. Perhaps the appeal should really begin there.

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