Searching for answers

Sometime ago I was told by an acquaintance that a friend from England, who had spent a few weeks here, had indicated to her when she was leaving that SVG was the only place she had been to where there were no regulations.{{more}}

What did the country’s visitor mean by this? Certainly not that there were no regulations, but that no one respected regulations. Regulations to all intents and purposes don’t exist if no one pays attention to them. I agree with the person’s assessment and am using ‘regulations’ in its broadest sense, incorporating law and order and common courtesies. I go further and say that we have become ungovernable, disrespectful, uncaring and selfish. Obviously, this is a generalisation, for so many of our people retain the old values, are caring and concerned about what is happening in their country.

To some of us, this country presents itself as the ‘theatre of the absurd.’ There is so much that is wrong sided. Right has become wrong and wrong right and I can go on. Sometimes, I have to ask myself if I am going senile or have lost my sense of reasoning and of knowing what is proper. This is more so when I hear some people trying to defend the indefensible and explain the inexplicable. When I heard about the issue involving the Registrar of the Supreme Court, I first wondered how that was really possible; but then I had just read portions of the Director of Audit’s Report, as published in the Vincentian newspaper, that pointed to a system breakdown, that raised serious questions about transparency and accountability and “non-compliance with accepted principles.” So, we can ask: what’s new? But it has to be more than that. It cannot be dismissed in that manner. On this issue, one has to ask if it is a question of different strokes for different folks, or is it a case of more being in the mortar beside the pestle. One of the annoying things about matters such as this is that there is little information coming from official circles. This, of course, leads to a lot of speculation and all sorts of stories begin to circulate, some sounding too far-fetched to be true, but it is, in any event, difficult making sense of what is happening here.

The first report of the matter I read was to the effect that the Registrar of the Supreme Court had resigned, having been asked to step down by the country’s Attorney General. The Prime Minister informed the Searchlight newspaper that investigations had been launched by the Director of Audit, the Attorney General and Commissioner of Police. I gathered, too, that the Registrar had met for half an hour with the Attorney General and left the country shortly after the meeting. In my foolish mind, I assumed that in such situations where an investigation was in place that the proper thing would have been to put the individual concerned on suspension, not being allowed to leave the country until the matter was settled. The fact that the individual was asked to resign suggests to me that she had already been found guilty, but of what? We later hear allegations about misappropriation of funds.

The funds were reportedly held in trust in a bank account and these were, it seems, funds held on behalf of beneficiaries for matters before the Court. The amounts were withdrawn over a period of time and we are told that some of the amounts withdrawn were “unrelated to matters being settled in Court.” Wow! This looks so easy. I, again in my foolishness, would have imagined that since the monies were held in trust on behalf of the Court that documents would have had to be presented to access these monies. Or were documents actually presented? It’s not clear. Was it only one account, or were there other accounts at different banks? Did someone not smell a rat or did it actually smell like coffee?

If the matter appeared to be so serious that the Registrar was called upon to resign, why was she allowed to leave the country? I assumed that charges will be laid against her, since the AG found it necessary to ask her to resign. If the issue is indeed about misappropriation of funds, is the investigation that is currently underway only to determine the extent of the misappropriation? Did I not say that things are wrong sided in this country? We start from the back and eventually weave ourselves to the front.

To confound the issue and to add to the confusion we are told that the AG has begun proceedings to have the Registrar disbarred, or rather to have her name removed from the list of lawyers allowed to practise here. Something here doesn’t make sense to me. I imagine that since the Judicial and Legal Services Commissions was the body that appointed the lady in question to the office of High Court Registrar that it would have been involved in the matter of her resignation. What confuses me most is the news that efforts or rather the process has started to have her removed from the list of lawyers practising here. This raises a number of questions in my mind: is this suggesting that she can be removed from the list of lawyers practising here, but allowed to practise elsewhere? Is the question of her being disbarred only applicable to her status in SVG?

You see, there is no official explanation. Any efforts made to get answers result in being chased from pillar to post. Do we not have the right to ask for and to get an explanation?

Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian.