The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

A story appearing in yesterday’s (September 21st) Nassau Guardian, under the title “Nottage’s statement on mandatory minimum sentences not completely accurate” sadly and vividly displays what is wrong with the mind-set of the political and judicial establishment of The Bahamas, and how it is hurting us.

The story reports that in 2000, then Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham backed down and removed minimum sentences for gun possession. The then PM said that the minimum sentence of two (that’s right, I said two!!!) years for possession of an illegal firearm was felt by magistrates to be “presumptuous” of Parliament (and by extension, the people) to impose on them.

Meanwhile, over in the Cayman Islands, earlier this year Parliament also relented over minimum sentences. It agreed, after 10 years, to reduce the minimum sentence from 10 (that’s right, I said ten!!) years to seven (7) years in the most exceptional circumstances, such as where the accused is a juvenile, pleads guilty and therefore saves the court’s time, or the “firearm” is in fact an airgun.

So, the Cayman Islands, with one murder in 2012, and 4 in 2013, imposes rules on its courts that require a 17 year old with no record, who admits to possession of a bb gun to spend seven years in prison. Meanwhile, The Bahamas, with 118 murders 2012 and 120 in 2013, finds itself apologising for being “presumptuous” in asking magistrates to impose a two-year minimum in a setting dominated by hardened repeat offenders engaged in endless gang wars on our streets.

Thankfully, 11 years later and under pressure of a murder rate that was approaching war-zone levels by 2011 (127 murders that year), the Ingraham government relented and moved to reintroduce mandatory sentences. It was too little (a measly four years), too late. But the whole affair demonstrates how Bahamian politicians, inclusive of Ingraham (this is not an FNM, PLP thing) simply do not understand the role of Parliament as the sovereign instrument of the will of the people and the ultimate upholder of the stability of the state.

Their reaction (hesitant, weak and hopelessly deferential) in dealing with a defunct court system, a permissive judicial culture and a resultant level of violence that is now endangering the viability of society, contrasts pathetically with Britain, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands (all draconian places for violent criminals).

It is time for our politicians to understand their role, their power and the nature of a sovereign parliament in dealing with anything that endangers the safety of the state and its inhabitants. Clearly they do not. They need to read up on how Cayman, Bermuda, Britain and other places maintain a level of public safety that has never been known in an independent Bahamas.

For their part, any judges or magistrates who feel offended by the “presumptuousness of Parliament” in reflecting the wishes of the Bahamian people regarding the acceptability of possessing an illegal gun in a civilised country, should be sent home to read Oliver Cromwell’s address to the Rump Parliament of 1653. We, the people, set the rules. The judges just apply them - and they apply them as we say. Thank you.

ANDREW ALLEN

Nassau,

September 22, 2015.