Two words, a terrible faux-pas and very serious implications on the judicial process, the way justice is dispensed and the protection afforded to the citizen by the constitution of the country. 

When Police Commissioner Anil Kumar Dip uttered the words “unprecedented evil” to qualify the decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions not to appeal against Magistrate Jade Ngan Chai King’s ruling, he in fact viciously attacked two independent institutions – some might say the only two left – the Judiciary – by insinuating the magistrate did not do her job well – and the Office of the DPP. This, in actual fact, is what constitutes a very dangerous – evil – precedent! It should not be condoned by anyone who believes in the separation of powers and checks and balances which are the pillars of democracy. 

The police commissioner’s arguments to the effect that “there are 337 drug traffickers on remand” and so with this “evil precedent”, their lawyers will now come forward and ask for bail for their clients raises a number of very worrying questions. 

First, how are they drug traffickers if they haven’t been tried and found guilty? Has the law changed so that everyone arrested by the police now is guilty until found innocent? Secondly, if there is such a backlog of detainees awaiting trial, what are Mr Dip’s policemen and women doing? What exactly is their priority? Keeping potentially innocent people in detention at the expense of the taxpayer so others don’t complain? How about the police doing their job properly and concluding investigations so that no one is given reason to complain? 

The police kept Bruneau Laurette in detention in a high security prison for four full months. During those long months, the police had plenty of time to adduce evidence – if they have it – to prove his guilt. Instead, they could not even show the court the only thing Laurette was asking for to prove his innocence: unedited video footage of the day of the arrest and Safe City camera footage of the dates he gave. The Forensic Science Laboratory is another story: after four months, they haven’t yet ascertained the type and purity of drugs entrusted to them to analyse and evaluate! And the magistrate and the DPP are being criticised for letting him out until the main case is called?!

More importantly, what is Mr Dip’s police doing against those who are posting offensive, defamatory and revolting lies against the magistrate and the DPP? For a benign joke, political opponents were hauled off to the police stations at the crack of dawn and spent the night in dreadful conditions. Now those who are accusing the DPP of having taken bribes and the magistrate of having had her ruling written by a former chief justice are spending the night happily with their families no questions asked? 

Where is the justice he is talking about? Under the pretext of cleaning up the country of corruption, the 2014 government embarked on a witch-hunt unseen in this country before which led to the imprisonment of dozens of opponents on trumped up charges that have all been struck off since. We later saw what corruption really meant when they got down to business. Its offshoot in 2019 perfected the art of persecution disguised as the war on drugs. It is even smarter and more insidious. Those who stand in the way pay a high price for it. 

It is clear that Mr Rashid Ahmine will not have an easier ride than his predecessor.