By Courtenay Barnett From The Sun TCI

Dear Governor, I noted recently, with interest, a posthumous pardon granted in 2019 in Bermuda, by their Governor Rankin.

In 1903 Reverend Charles Vinton Monk, a Black American pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, also a journalist, stood up for the rights of Jamaicans who were being abused at the work place when they were brought to work in Bermuda at the Royal Navy Dockyard. He was, by reason of his exposure of the wrongdoings of the British authorities, imprisoned for criminal libel on 16th December, 1903.

Now, this is my reason for writing to Your Excellency

Myself a lawyer, I am aware that it is a rarity that posthumous pardons are granted and only so in exceptional circumstances. I believe that what Attorney Rodney stood for and in consequence was imprisoned for in the Turks and Caicos Islands, by analogy to Rev. Monk, does constitute exceptional circumstances. 

What did Rodney do wrong?

He defended the poor in Court; he brought to the attention of their Lordships, the fact that despite the law having specific provisions for the grant of legal aid, the law was being observed in the breach ( thus he single handedly ensured that legal aid was granted to those who were accused of any serious crime and required proper defence which otherwise could not be afforded); he established his own legal aid clinic to serve poor people; he was central to using the Courts to challenge the ultra vires charges of the then British monopoly company, Cable and Wireless, which with the then Governor’s complicity had inflicted usurious, outrageously high, and unregulated charges on the consumer public, which required telecommunication services as a modern-day necessary public service. I argued the main case against Cable and Wireless and we won on appeal when it was discovered that unbeknown to us, when Rodney placed himself as the ‘David Plaintiff’ against the ‘Goliath corporation’, Sir Frederick Smith who sat as the trial judge concealed his interest in the company as its Chairman of the Board of Directors and a shareholder. Rodney stood up against injustice and thus made himself a target of the establishment, like Rev. Monk, to be found guilty of contempt of court and in consequence was imprisoned like a common criminal.

Rodney’s imprisonment, truth be told, was both baseless and vengeful. He was sentenced to serve three (3) months in Her Majesty’s Prison. I too was arrested but was not imprisoned. I rallied to Rodney’s assistance and mobilised the best legal brains regionally in the Caribbean, contacted an UN affiliated organization in Canada, and engaged Amnesty International. Amnesty adopted Lloyd Rodney as a global ‘prisoner of conscience’ and it demanded that he be released unconditionally by the British Government. 

The British authorities then placed Rodney in the hospital and shackled him to his hospital bed, in an attempt to humiliate him. The doctors ordered removal of the shackling chain. The newspaper made his mistreatment public knowledge and our overseas supporters exposed the wrongdoing globally. In consequence I sued the authorities on Rodney’s behalf and Rodney won his case.

The foregoing facts are notoriously well known in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Your Excellency has three options by way of reply to this request: 1) grant the pardon; 2) say why the deserving do not deserve, or 3) simply do nothing, which is the equivalent of option 2.

The civil servant

However, Your Excellency’s immediate predecessor, did elect to do nothing when I made pointed and factual complaints about the Deputy Governor’s misconduct as cross-complaints in regards to another matter of egregious injustice inflicted on a client of mine. 

The matter concerned a civil servant who, despite the fact that he had an unblemished record of over twenty-three (23) years of faithful, diligent, and competent service with the Government, was without just cause, put on indefinite leave without the prospects, as it appeared, of ever being reinstated to his position. Only after strenuous legal, and other efforts, inclusive of a formal complaint in the matter to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, did your predecessor, on a day very close to when His Excellency was due to depart from the Turks and Caicos Islands, reinstate my client to his post. This after having had ample time to take legal advice, done absolutely nothing in that matter or on the cross-complaints for over two(2) years.

In fact two (2) men were paid from the public purse to do one (1) man’s job, since one was suspended on full pay and the other was employed to do the other man’s job at full pay. Was it arrogance, incompetence, stupidity – or a combination of all those failings? That was a wrong and unworthy precedent for someone who holds the high and important executive office of Governorship of these islands to set. 

Other precedents of disproportionate and unjust treatment meted out as an attack on Freedom of Expression (speech), exist from both colonial days and modern Britain. In colonial Jamaica in the 1940s, a noted Jamaican author, journalist, novelist, poet, playwright and artist, Roger Mais, published an article entitled ‘Now we know’ which questioned the propriety of the conduct of the British authorities for enslavement, exploitation and perpetuation of colonialism. In consequence he was tried and sentenced to six (6) months imprisonment for seditious libel. In 2019 the publisher of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, finds himself in a British gaol, Belmarsh prison, a high security prison, for having consistently published the truth about state and high authorities’ misconduct, inclusive of abuses inflicted by the British state. “How dare mere colonial subjects or truthful advocates question our unassailable authority and/or integrity” seems to be the displayed mantra and exclusive prerogative being exercised. Shouldn’t there be a better trope for our time?

Do the right thing 

Let not the annals of history have Lloyd Rodney posthumously appear to have been a justly convicted and imprisoned criminal. Scylla and Charybdis by way of allegorical reference would be for Your Excellency, as presumably a new, vibrant and different Governor, simply either to follow colonial precedent (but which precedent) – or – make a sensible and logical written response in a timely manner. 

Quintessential colonialism needs to end in all the British Overseas Territories. Despite promises and protestations to the contrary that Britain has modernised in word and deed, the facts belie the declaration. Old habits are mentally embedded and evidently choose to die a slow and reluctant death. 

Justice in action

As Your Excellency considers the Bermudian precedent, also be aware of the abuse of power and wrongdoing emanating from some previous Governors’ time in office here in the TCI; wrongdoing occurring time, and time again. This evidenced by the following examples:- 

1. Having not enacted the necessary regulations to control unlawful pricing of companies like Cable and Wireless (until litigated).
2. Failing administratively to control manifest corruption (but rather condoning it) within the judiciary, relative to the date and time when Rodney was imprisoned.
3. Deeming it normal and acceptable to renew the contract of a British appointed Chief Justice in the Turks and Caicos Islands who knowingly, wilfully and purposely sat in open conflict of interest.

Your Excellency, upon examining these facts, I believe that as an upholder and defender of the law, that you will conclude that there is merit to my arguments.

It took over a century for Reverend Monk to be totally exonerated for doing the right thing; may Rodney be granted his just due well before the end of this century.

Welcome with gratitude

I remain grateful for Your Excellency taking time to read, and act fairly on the basis of my open letter to you.

Welcome to the Turks and Caicos Islands and may we be able to look forward to better times ahead.

Respectfully,

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Courtenay Francis Raymond Barnett

cc. Honourable Premier of the Turks and Caicos Islands.
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* COURTENAY BARNETT is a graduate of London University. His areas of study were economics, political science and international law. He has been a practising lawyer for over thirty years, has been arrested for defending his views, has been subjected to death threats, and has argued public interest and human rights cases. He lives and works in the Caribbean.

For More on this story go to: https://suntci.com/a-posthumous-pardon-for-attorney-lloyd-rodney-p4389-129.htm