A State of Near-Anarchy

Everyone is arrogating to himself/herself the right to do what he/she wants, to say whatever he/she wants, to pass value judgments on any matter, to accuse and convict publicly anyone. Rules are violated. Ethics are totally absent. Rights are not respected or if they are invoked they are made to apply to a select few

One more suspect has died in detention. He was being detained in the wake of the cowardly and senseless killing of two women. Suspicion hovered on a young man attending university and this young man is now accusing the deceased Rakesh Ramlogun. Is that the truth? Only a proper investigation can establish that. But what has happened beckons all of us to think rationally and place the debate above politics, emotional outburst, above any vendetta-orientated attitude -- given that the main target of a section of the press has been police officer Radhooa.

It will be recalled that that officer had been removed by Paul Berenger�s government and sent to the SMF following his alleged improper handling of the Vanessa Lagesse murder. Today Pravind Jugnauth is putting the blame for the death of detainee Ramlogun on the shoulders of Navin Ramgoolam. Who will he blame for the violence during the general elections in constituency number 11 which saw his own personal discomfiture? Instead of playing his role as an opposition member without a parliamentary seat rationally he is trying to derive political capital out of the death of a person. The electorate should bear this in mind.

What happened in the Ramlogun case places a high burden on all of us because we all have to share the burden of the blame. Politicians, members of the civil society, the press, the police, the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the judiciary, and the Human Rights Commission are all to blame. The politicians, whatever parties they belong, have lawyers in their midst and whilst in opposition promise to bring in sweeping reforms to the manner in which police investigations are conducted. When the DPP filed the case of Cehl Meeah, grandiloquent statements were made on the urgent need to reform the office of the DPP. The last government led by Paul Berenger and Pravind Jugnauth had the required majority to reform that office. Nothing was done and today these same gentlemen are clamouring for fast track reforms now that they are in the opposition. This is shameful and cowardly demagoguery.

Furthermore, the perception is that political interference is rife in the police. The way in which transfers and promotions are decided cause great frustration in the force. The case of Jokhoo and Radhooa under Paul Berenger is well known. We�d better not talk of the messy Toorab Bisessur case. The MMM-PSM government has interfered in the police department as no government has ever done. Police Commissionner Rajarai had to step down on the insistence of one politician, the very same man who hounded Jean Delaitre from the MBC and who is now vomiting protests against the l�ve pak� all� policy. As for Navin Ramgoolam, rumour has it that he often bypasses the Police Commissioner to deal with his subordinates. If this is so, it is a matter of deep regret and concern. The one question that politicians including the demagogue Pravind Jugnath should answer is whether they still consider it rational and fair to allow investigations on the police to be carried by the police. Such a procedure reminds us of hard-core dictatorships -- and it smells pornographic.

Members of the civil society have for years been blaming the police for all the woes with the gleeful help of the press. Not one day has gone by over the years without the press and civil society failing to blame the police for all the woes of the land. Road accidents, drinking problems, rowdy behaviour, the rise in crimes, the failure to solve crimes, just name it and the police are blamed. The civil society and the press seem to deliberately forget that the police consist of human beings with their weaknesses, strengths and egoes. There comes a time when the lid pops up violently when the steam is unbearable. In order to dispel that image of inefficiency the police are trying to better the image by solving the crimes and in the process they tend to resort to unconventional methods. No violence by the police should be condoned in any circumstance and the corollary is that unjustified portrayal of police as a bunch of good for nothing should end too.

The office of the DPP has been much in the news since the filing of all the cases against Cehl Meeah. Taxpayers are not allowed to know what goes on behind closed doors in the corridors of the DPP�s power. Questions may be asked on whether there are regular contacts and brainstorming sessions between the police and the office of the DPP. Does the DPP issue guidelines to the police whenever the Supreme Court issues a judgment on the rights of suspects?

As for the Human Rights Commission, the only person who has had the courage to say publicly that it is a toothless bulldog is Jean Claude Bibi. In the turmoil of the Ramlogun case the Chairman of the Commission leaves for Geneva. Why was he not asked to stay and send another officer to Geneva? Where are the priorities of the Commission? If the Commission has powers to investigate cases of death in detention, why did it not act in the present case? One of the basic rules of a proper investigation is to secure all the evidence when there is chance of doing so. Does the Commission ever propose reforms in the field of human rights? Does it issue directives that may be of help to the police? The answer that may be forthcoming from the Commission is that it has no power to do certain things. At times one should not merely read the legislation but go further and try to break new ground and innovate.

The police bear a heavy responsibility in what has happened. The police force has of late become an institution where many police officers are keener to advance their own personal agenda. Some of them have privileged links with the press and would feed an ever-greedy press with information that would undermine the police force. Some of them would always be unhappy and frustrated and would criticize colleagues. The sense of duty has been replaced by personal needs. Day in and day out we see that the press lists the names of all police officers engaged in an investigation as if this is important. It would have been thought that the police work as an entity for the common good. When police officer Radhooa was transferred back to the investigating unit, the police officers and the press went on a crusade against him. Everything was done to pillory Radhooa. Such an attitude is not to the credit of either the police or the press.

Furthermore there is also the perception that for years the judiciary has shown a very complacent attitude towards police practice. Whenever confessions have been challenged on grounds of moral or physical violence the courts have invariably found in favour of the police. Only a handful of the judgments have explained clearly why this is so. In the vast majority of judgments the verdicts only contain clich�s that the court has listened to the evidence and is satisfied that the police are telling the truth. No court of law has ever dared hand down decisions that have made a real breakthrough in advancing the rights of suspects.

Only two judges dared to do so. In two landmark judgments former judges Robert Ahnee and Vinod Boolell have ruled in what circumstances the police are allowed to arrest an individual. They also explained what amounted to reasonable suspicion. In one other case they went very far on how the courts should approach the detention issue.

In 1991 in another landmark judgment former judge Vinod Boolell ruled that there is duty on the police by virtue of the Constitution to inform a suspect if his right to a lawyer and to allow him facilities to consult a lawyer. Unfortunately that decision that sought to reinforce the rights of suspects was criticized even by members of the DPP�s office. To make matters worse, two Supreme Court Judges (and they were the former Chief JusticeJocelyn Forget and the present Senior Puisne Judge Bernard Sik Yuen) ruled that, under our Constitution, there is no duty on the part of the police to inform a suspect of his right to a lawyer. They added that it is only when the suspect expresses a wish to consult a legal adviser of his choice that he must be afforded reasonable facilities to do so. In other words the two judges were content with leaving a suspect in the grips of the police and leave it to him to express the wish to have a lawyer.

It was only in 1997 that the Full Bench with Chief Justice Pillay and Judges Vidya Narayen and Paul lam Shang Leen held that this decision was wrong. They reaffirmed the principle decided by judge Boolell that a suspect must be informed of his right. The Full Bench went even further and held that the police must ensure that the suspect has understood that requirement. The fundamental question that must be asked in the case of Rakesh Ramlogun is whether the police were treating him as a witness or as a suspect and if he were a suspect the charge they had levelled against him, albeit provisionally, and whether after he had been charged he was told that he could contact a legal adviser.

Very often the police would take a person in custody and treat him as a witness. This is basically wrong and goes against section 5 of our Constitution because under that section the grounds on which a person may be arrested are set out clearly. This is a practice that should be reviewed. One of the grounds is that the person is suspected upon reasonable grounds of having committed or about to commit a criminal offence. This is very important as the reasonable ground of the suspicion is an essential part of the safeguard of the protection of the individual against arrest and arbitrary detention. And the European Court of Human Rights has held that reasonable suspicion presupposes the existence of facts or information which would satisfy an objective observer that the person concerned may have committed the offence.

A key question that needs to be asked is whether Rakesh Ramlogun was arrested with or without a warrant. If there was a warrant the issue is whether the Magistrate signing it was satisfied on facts presented to him or that there was reasonable suspicion of the involvement of Ramlogun in any offence. Magistrates should realize that they are not mere rubber stamps of the police or any other authority. On this score one may ask on what basis did Magistrate Denis Mootoo issue a warrant of arrest against officer Radhooa. Was the officer being charged with an offence? It is only the police that can charge somebody under the Police Act. The Magistrate should explain who levelled a charge against Radhooa that prompted the issue of the warrant. The question becomes pertinent now that the warrant has died a natural death. Will the Chief Justice if he has time inquire into this?

Tthe death of R. Ramlogun has highlighted the state of near-anarchy that we are living through. Everyone is arrogating to himself/herself the right to do what he/she wants, to say whatever he/she wants, to pass value judgments on any matter, to accuse and convict publicly anyone. Rules are violated. Ethics are totally absent. Rights are not respected or if they are invoked they are made to apply to a select few and those whom the public and the press want to hound and pillory have no rights in the eyes of that same public or the press. Cry my beloved country�

Raja Ratnam

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Mauritius Times - Mauritius20 January 2006

A State of Near-Anarchy

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Mauritius Times - Mauritius
20 January 2006