The Tribune

DOUGLAS Ngumi was wronged by this country.

He had his liberty stripped away for six and a half years, and the paltry compensation he receives for that is $641,950 in damages.

If his case seems familiar, it is because this kind of thing happens too often. In September, we asked the question “What is the value of a year of your freedom?”

That wasn’t in relation to Mr Ngumi’s case – it was the case of Matthew Sewell, a man who was locked up for even longer than Mr Ngumi. Mr Sewell spent nine years and nine months fighting for his freedom despite never being convicted of a single crime.

We can go back further – to 1991, when Atain Takitota was arrested by immigration officers in Nassau. He had no money, no passport, spoke no English but claimed to be a Japanese citizen, although authorities in Tokyo denied it. His only crime was to be a homeless foreigner. For that, he spent eight years behind bars in maximum security at Fox Hill prison, where he tried to kill himself three times. After his imprisonment was finally deemed unconstitutional in 2004, he was awarded a mere $1,000 in damages. A later appeal pushed that up to $500,000 plus costs.

Which brings us to Mr Ngumi, whose case was mostly unchallenged since government lawyers did not call witnesses or produce evidence.

The failure of authorities to charge and arraign him and deport him within a reasonable time means his detention was ruled unlawful by Justice Indra Charles.

Further, he was beaten brutally at the detention centre, describing one occasion when he was stripped naked, tied, handcuffed under a table and beaten repeatedly with a PVC pipe.

He described occasions when tear gas was used on detainees.

Mr Ngumi’s award of compensation was largely based on Mr Takitota’s $500,000 award, with Justice Charles saying Mr Ngumi’s treatment was not as appalling as Mr Takitota’s.

Part of Mr Ngumi’s award was based on how much he might have expected to earn per day had he not been locked up – but that seems a strange way to calculate the value of one’s liberty. Does a rich man get more for being locked up? Does a poor man deserve any less for the loss of his freedom?

In punitive terms, the sum is not large enough to encourage the authorities to make sure this never happens again. The exemplary damages portion of the award was just $100,000 – or about $15,400 a year for the period spent locked up.

While Mr Ngumi’s lawyer, Fred Smith QC, had his plea for $11m in damages described as “fantastical”, we do wonder what it will take to make authorities think twice.

We see these cases all too often – and it makes us wonder who still is behind bars being treated this way.

More than that, will this be the last we hear of this case, brushed away under the carpet as over and done? Where is the independent probe into the allegations of abuse? Who was responsible for the beatings, the tear gas?

An occasional court case, barely fought by the government, and the payout to go with it should not be the price of doing business when that business is unlawful detention and brutal treatment of detainees.

Mr Ngumi’s award is the largest award of its kind in the country’s history. Previous awards have sparked no calls from leadership for a fundamental change in the way we deal with long-term detention without charge. Will Mr Ngumi’s case prompt that discussion? Or will it just be filed away and nothing is done. Not for his case. Or the next. Or the next.

That cannot be justice.

A third wave?

The measures we have taken in the fight against COVID-19 have largely been justified on being based on medical advice. But what happens when doctors oppose the lifting of those measures?

The reopening of the country to tourism has a number of doctors concerned we might be about to face a third wave of the virus, with Atlantis and Baha Mar both preparing to open their doors.

The president of the Consultant Physicians Staff Association warned: “We certainly don’t want to have a worst-case scenario.”

Recently, the number of new cases has taken a downturn thankfully – but even tonight The Tribune was investigating unconfirmed reports of a number of new cases in Lyford Cay, possibly linked to someone returning to the country. There were no further details of that as we went to press – but it shows the level of concern we are facing, and the risk that one case in a gathering might prompt a renewed surge.

The doctors are consistent in one other way however – we must keep doing what we are doing, in terms of masks, washing, social distancing and not going to large gatherings. That has helped us flatten the curve, it can help prevent another surge.