Criminals Shouldn’t Be Awarded Contracts; and Judiciary Shouldn’t Be Politically Influenced

Former Magistrate Tiyani Behanzin said criminals shouldn’t be awarded contracts and the judiciary shouldn’t be politically influenced. Behanzin said these steps among others are necessary to bring about a Dominica where judges are truly independent to discharge their judicial duties and extra-judicial killings become history.

Behanzin lamented the rising spate of shooting deaths in Dominica and probably throughout the Caribbean. He said some of these deaths are orchestrated by social miscreants and jobless youths, while law enforcement agents have their share of such killings. The former magistrate said unexplained shootings and violent crimes will become a thing of the past if the judiciary remains truly independent from political influences.

According to the legal luminary, it is either judicial officers speak the truth or be faced with legal problems they wouldn’t be able to resolve. In fact, he stated that the appointment of judges should not be tainted with any political interests in order to have a legal system that is faceless in dispensing true justice.

We need to get to a place where we respect the offices of our institutions that form the core part and parcel of our democratic process that a society could rely on in the future, as separate from the individuals that may hold these offices at any political time.

Tiyani Behanzin

He blamed regional governments for preventable deaths and killings where law enforcement agencies and the judiciary could have prevented or resolved it.

“But to an extent, these extra-judicial killings take place throughout the Caribbean; we don’t look at it carefully, but it is true,” he said. “We have one recently and several other shootings that we cannot explain in Dominica. And I can say that these killings are the result of extra-judicial activities by the police and other law enforcement agencies. And if we are not prepared to say that, then we should run away from the problem.”  

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