SOURCE: CMC– Two months after a 60 year-old businessman said he had been shot and injured when three people, including a government legislator came to his home, Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves says the country will know “shortly” what action will be taken by the Director of Public prosecution (DPP), Sejilla McDowall.
Government Senator, Ashelle Morgan, who is also the Minister of Legal Affairs, has been implicated in the shooting incident and there have been calls for Prime Minister Gonsalves to dismiss her from the government.
“I will be fair to everybody, including Ashelle Morgan. There are some people who feel, ‘Where this girl come from all of a sudden that she could be senator?’ Some people don’t like poor people children to advance,” Prime Minister Gonsalves told a virtual news conference.
“Look, I have a mature and fair approach to this thing. I simply say, we will find out shortly what the DPP will do,” he said, adding “and if she charges for whatever offences, there will be a trial. If she doesn’t charge, there will be no trial.
“And I can’t attempt in any way to influence this. If we want to build our democratic institutions and our institution of justice, we must do it properly,” Gonsalves said.
Cornelius John said he was shot at his home on April 13, allegedly by trespassers. No arrests or charges have so far been brought in the case.
Commissioner of Police, Colin John has said that Morgan, a lawyer who is also Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly, along with Karim Nelson, an assistant DPP are persons of interest in the investigation.
He told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) last week that investigators have sought caution statements from John, Morgan, and Nelson.
Police have not disclosed the identity of the third person who, along with Nelson and Morgan, is alleged to have gone to John’s home.
John has said that of the trio, each of whom had been wearing a face mask, he was only able to recognise Morgan, since he knows her gait, physique and voice having grown up in Diamond Estate, where the shooting took place.
Gonsalves, speaking to reporters since his return here from Cuba on Saturday, where he had been with his ailing wife, Eloise, for the past three weeks, said he was aware of “people talking about the rule of law requires that the government, that is to say, me, I do something”.
He said that when someone alleges that a criminal offence has been committed, two important factors arise: that a person is entitled to the presumption of innocence; that person is entitled to procedural fairness (due process of the law).
“Those two things are fundamental in an investigation and a prosecution. I have nothing to do with that. These are not legal niceties. I see one lawyer who writes quite a lot says that I am finding refuge in legalism. I emphatically say it is not a legalism that a person is entitled to a presumption of innocence. That is a bedrock of a fair and just society.”
Gonsalves said that an allegation of criminality must be independently investigated by the police, who, particularly in a serious matter, present their findings to the DPP.
The DPP then reviews the file, and may give further instructions to the police, who responds to those instructions then sends back the file to the DPP — as has been the case in the extant matter.
“Would somebody show me anywhere in the law book, anywhere in the Constitution that any of those things is a mere legalism — in the first place. Secondly, that the prime minister can intrude himself in this,” Gonsalves said.
“From the beginning I tell everyone just wait. Some investigations take longer than others but because Ashelle Morgan is a Snator on the government side that she is not entitled to that?”
Gonsalves had earlier commented on the incident, saying that people must be careful not to offend the laws of defamation. He said further that Morgan had called him after the shooting incident.
However, the public largely concluded that the prime minister’s comments were intended to be an excuse for Morgan’s alleged involvement in the shooting.
“I see people wiring have brought her guilty. She isn’t charged yet, they have brought her guilty…I see a lawyer, every day, at least newspapers are reporting her or online publication reporting… and she is on all the time on the radio saying what offence Ashelle Morgan should be charged with,” Gonsalves told the news conference.
“And nobody among the lawyers has the guts, no one has the guts, the fortitude, to get up and say, ‘What you are doing is wrong’, that there is an investigation ongoing…”
“Let the DPP do her work,” Gonsalves said. “She (lawyer) is advising which charge should be laid? And nobody at the active bar, among the lawyers, would say anything about that? And that could be fair?
“You notice among other things, I said to you earlier, in dealing with our monument crises — our monumental challenges — is, among other things we must be patient yet act with urgency, that we must be flexible yet be focus and stay within the framework of the law,” Gonsalves said, referring to comment he made about recovery from the eruption of La Soufriere in April.