The fall­out from the bun­gled case of Brent Thomas and the scathing com­ments of Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad con­tin­ued through­out the week. Last Mon­day the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter in a tele­vised press con­fer­ence sought to dis­tance the Cab­i­net and him­self from the po­lice ac­tions ad­dressed in that case. He not­ed that the de­ci­sion would be ap­pealed, which is his right as was the judge in mak­ing his com­ments.

In the process, the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter be­came dis­com­bob­u­lat­ed. What­ev­er his an­noy­ance with the judge, he is a cab­i­net min­is­ter who took an oath to up­hold the Con­sti­tu­tion. Yet he un­der­mined the very in­sti­tu­tions he swore to de­fend when he re­spond­ed to a re­porter say­ing “Crim­i­nals have friends every­where in this coun­try. They have them in the Po­lice Ser­vice, they have them in the Cus­toms, in the Im­mi­gra­tion, in the De­fence Force, they have them in the Ju­di­cia­ry, they have them in the Par­lia­ment.”

No one is above the law, not the Cab­i­net, the Ju­di­cia­ry, the po­lice, the De­fence Force, or any per­son or gov­ern­ment de­part­ment. There is due process. It ap­plies to every­one to en­sure that cit­i­zens’ rights as en­shrined in Sec­tion 4 of the Con­sti­tu­tion are up­held. The Ex­tra­di­tion (Com­mon­wealth and Ex­ter­nal Ter­ri­to­ries) Act Chap­ter 12:04 sets out the pro­ce­dure. The Cari­com Ar­rest War­rant Treaty in­volves a short­er process and there were calls for its en­act­ment by Cari­com’s prime min­is­ters when dis­cussing crime two weeks ago. But it is not law and can­not be re­lied on.

The AG is re­port­ed as say­ing that “in­for­mal pro­ce­dures” have been used six times in the past. Such in­for­mal and ex­tra­ju­di­cial process­es are il­le­gal and a slip­pery slope that can eas­i­ly lead to an abuse of pow­er. Calls for an in­quiry by Bar­ba­dos and T&T AGs are a fig leaf. Who has the au­thor­i­ty to di­rect po­lice, air traf­fic con­trol, and im­mi­gra­tion, in two dif­fer­ent coun­tries, arrange a mil­i­tary plane, and au­tho­rise po­lice of­fi­cers to trav­el from one coun­try to an­oth­er? State in­sti­tu­tions are clothed with tremen­dous pow­er. That is why they are kept sep­a­rate, to pre­vent abuse. When there are breach­es the tax­pay­er pays the cost.

Whilst the Con­sti­tu­tion en­shrines the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers be­tween the Ex­ec­u­tive and the Ju­di­cia­ry and oth­er branch­es of the State, it is the Cab­i­net’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that they all work to­geth­er. This re­quires a re­spon­si­ble, ma­ture, and in­tel­li­gent ap­proach, par­tic­u­lar­ly when things go awry as the judge re­marked in the case of Brent Thomas. Yet it is Brent Thomas’s right to de­fend him­self and the court’s du­ty to ad­ju­di­cate the mat­ter. How­ev­er dif­fi­cult it is to ac­cept, the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter must up­hold the process and re­spect the in­sti­tu­tions of the State. His words demon­strate that he lacks the grav­i­tas and com­mand re­quired for the po­si­tion which he now oc­cu­pies.

The prime min­is­ter’s lat­est rant, to wit “There are too many peo­ple who ei­ther can do noth­ing, who are not pre­pared to do any­thing but quick to blame every­body else for their cir­cum­stances, and I am just so fed up with so many of those peo­ple who have per­me­at­ed our so­ci­ety … such peo­ple need to be called out” ap­ply equal­ly to him­self and Min­is­ter Hinds. They both have been quick to blame every­one and avoid ei­ther tak­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty or ac­count­abil­i­ty.

When one can­not stand the heat, it is best to get out of the kitchen.