Is­rael B. Ra­jah-Khan S.C., L.L.D. (Hon­oris Causa)

Pres­i­dent, Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion

That the vi­o­lent/racist state­ment al­leged­ly made by Star Sab­ga that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is a stink­ing c****e who should re­ceive a bul­let to her head has not been de­nied by the lawyers de­fend­ing her is re­veal­ing. It sim­ply means they, in­clud­ing Sab­ga, have all ac­cept­ed she made that state­ment. 

It ap­pears that they are all al­lud­ing that she en­joys the con­sti­tu­tion­al right of free­dom of speech in ref­er­ence to the Prime Min­is­ter as a “stink­ing c****e who should re­ceive a bul­let to her head.” Hence, no apol­o­gy is forth­com­ing on be­half of their client but rather the ar­gu­ment that she was an old frus­trat­ed woman sim­ply rant­i­ng and rav­ing. 

I am ut­ter­ly sur­prised that Se­nior Coun­sel Rishi Dass did not of­fer an apol­o­gy on be­half of his client in open court. But then again, Se­nior Coun­sel Dass can on­ly act on the in­struc­tion of his client. 

Rishi Dass, SC, is a mem­ber of the pro­fes­sion­al class of this coun­try and should be proud that from an East In­dia di­as­po­ra who emerged from the bond c****e in­den­tured “slaves,” many of us, in­clud­ing him­self, to­geth­er with our African broth­ers/sis­ters, Syr­i­ans and oth­ers, be­long to the “rul­ing class” of our beloved coun­try. 

And I place on the pub­lic record that Dass is en­ti­tled to rep­re­sent Sab­ga, in spite of the fact that no apol­o­gy is forth­com­ing from her. Maybe she has been legal­ly ad­vised that Sec­tion 7(1) of the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Act states: “A per­son shall not oth­er­wise than in pri­vate, do any act which is rea­son­ably like­ly, in all the cir­cum­stances to of­fend, in­sult, hu­mil­i­ate or in­tim­i­date an­oth­er per­son or a group of per­sons.” 

“Is Star Sab­ga re­ly­ing on her con­sti­tu­tion­al right to pri­vate­ly make the state­ment that Per­sad-Bisses­sar is a stink­ing c****e who should re­ceive a bul­let to her head?”

In the full­ness of time, the coun­try would know when this ques­tion more like­ly than not would be posed to her lawyers in her court mat­ter. 

 Be that as it may, I, as many oth­er at­tor­neys of this coun­try, would refuse to rep­re­sent a client like Sab­ga if the racial/vi­o­lent state­ment was re­al­ly made, un­less she, at least in hind­sight, apol­o­gis­es to the Prime Min­is­ter and the en­tire East In­di­an di­as­po­ra in this, our beloved coun­try. We have come too far for us to tol­er­ate such in­sults. 

And to all the mem­bers of the East In­di­an di­as­po­ra who are mak­ing bold-faced state­ments ex­on­er­at­ing Sab­ga, they should bend their heads in shame.   And if that vi­o­lent/racist state­ment is not re­tract­ed by Sab­ga – I say she is no Star but sim­ply a cheese­mak­er with a dirty mouth with no class or spir­i­tu­al or moral val­ues. 

And as for the con­spir­a­cy charge to mur­der the Prime Min­is­ter and oth­er Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion must con­tin­ue in or­der to clear or charge her with this very se­ri­ous crim­i­nal of­fence which car­ries a sen­tence of life im­pris­on­ment. Jus­tice for all must pre­vail.