July 17, 2014: Whenever someone in a position of power and authority is accused of abusing that power and authority, it behooves us all to stop and quickly examine the veracity of the allegations.

The issue takes on greater urgency when the person wielding power and authority is a member of the legal system – from police officer to magistrate and judge. These are people who, in the execution of their power and authority, could rob a citizen of his or her two most precious gifts from God – life and freedom.

Police officers, for example, carry weapons that ought to be used only when it is absolutely necessary to protect themselves or members of the public. They ought not to use unnecessary force or to arbitrarily discharge their weapons to harm or kill anyone.

A similar level of responsibility applies to magistrates who sit in judgment of alleged lawbreakers.

It is against this background that our newspaper expresses deep concern over the allegations of legal abuse leveled against Magistrate Jerry Seales, and appeals for a prompt and thorough investigation of the allegations.

“I do feel strongly that this magistrate is not a fit and proper person to be sitting on the bench,’’ says Ruggles Ferguson, the Grenada Bar Association president.

Ferguson is not the first person to have raised an alarm about Seales’ courtroom behaviour. The GBA president is simply the first high-profile citizen to have gone public about Seales.

And, while Ferguson’s public utterance coincided with a protest against Seales by bus operators upset by the magistrate’s demand that traffic offenders pay huge on-the-spot fines or be committed to jail, the issue with the drivers is just one of many matters that have caused Grenadians – at home and abroad – to question the judgment, and even the mental state, of Magistrate Seales.

Those who are cheering for Seales, happy that he is being “tough’’, and uncaring of whether he is breaking the law in the process, are missing a significant larger point. For one, if Seales indeed is engaging in legal disregard, then he also is involved in abrogating the law.

Second, Seales also could be bringing the judicial system into further disrepute and disrespect; something that’s unlikely to help in the long run.

And while we understand our farmers and others – who have been criminal victims – supporting the actions of Seales, there is no objective data demonstrating that his ordering of flogging, and imposing of hefty fines and prison sentences, are serving as a deterrent to criminality and reducing crime.

What’s also ironic is that many of those applauding Seales were strong in condemning former Prime Minister Eric Gairy for using the police and the Mongoose Gang to stem radicalism and alleged crimes and disruptive behaviour by youth in the 1970s; and they howled the loudest at the use of “heavy manners’’ by the People’s Revolution Government to maintain law and order between 1979 and 1983.

Putting aside the matter of Seales, the magistrate, we must ask why in 2014 so many archaic laws are still on the books.

And ask, too, where are the voices of the churches and groups like the Grenada National Organization of Women – usually vocal in opposition to abuse – when state-sanctioned violence is routinely inflicted on those who are black and poor, and who are sent to police stations to be beaten about their bodies by RGPF officers. Yet, Seales – and other magistrates too – never order the same punishment for lawbreakers of any other race, colour, ethnicity or socio-economic background.

We all want to stamp out crime nationwide – a point made by Ferguson when he told reporters: “I am not advocating that lawbreakers should not be penalized’’.

What Ferguson does want, and we all should want, is the application of the law within is confines.

Eliminating crime requires a multi-prong approach; no one approach will, or has been shown anywhere, to provide the solution – not even execution by hanging, lethal injection and firing squads, or the chopping off of bodily limbs in some Islamic countries.

Crime reduction and elimination ought to start with the family and with parents teaching children respect for self and others, and instructing them on their obligation to respect the laws of God and the land.

Crime reduction and elimination also must involve good civic education at school, as well as the involvement of support systems in the community such as sports and cultural clubs and religious organizations; and, of course, with government providing opportunities for employment and conditions also for its citizens to create their own businesses.

Caribupdate Weekly agrees with the sentiments of Ruggles Ferguson; if Seales is found to be abusing his power and authority, he should be disqualified from serving as a magistrate.

But the real solution to crime and punishment in our nation rests with an overhaul of our old colonial and slave laws that not only allow cover for injustice to be unleashed on our citizenry, but also often cost the State millions of dollars in compensatory payments.

A genuine solution also requires a review of procedures for appointing judges, police chiefs and other senior law enforcement officials; and also finding better ways to raise our children to be productive and law-abiding citizens.