Hugh Wildman

The controversial Hugh Wildman is once again making the local headlines. It is not the intention of this newspaper to get involved in the war of words between the said Wildman and others on the recent ruling by the British Privy Council on the matter involving three of the seventeen persons implicated in the 1983 murder of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop.

Our concern is that the continued conflict between Wildman and the local bar must come to an end in order for the public to regain confidence in the legal profession. There is no denying that some people in this country regard the controversial Jamaican lawyer as the legal hatchet man for the Keith Mitchell and he knows no bound in hounding down opponents of the regime.

This newspaper has always held the view that the ruling New National Party (NNP) government has clearly demonstrated a penchant over the years to try and control the judiciary. The former Foreign Minister, Dr. Raphael Fletcher openly stated in a radio interview that Prime Minister Mitchell would make hostile remarks against then high court judge and current Acting OECS Chief Justice, Brian Alleyne whenever he ruled against his government.

Alleyne is known to have been punished by the NNP regime who perceived him as being anti-government. He was denied for many months a replacement refrigerator for the one that went bad at his official residence.

The government did not consider the matter an issue of priority and the judge was forced to use the home of a friend in Grenada to store his meat for fear of seeing it go bad within a matter of days.

Is that how we treat our judges? The recent case involving current high court judge, Justice Davidson Baptiste is another classic example of how this regime is bent on treating persons holding high judicial office in this country.

When it became clear that the judge was not receiving his salary on time and he refused to sit, the matter was brought to the attention of the Prime Minister by a member of the bar association. The decent thing for the Prime Minister to have done was to ask the Solicitor-General to intervene and meet with the judge to rectify the situation in the shortest possible time.

But the expected response of Dr. Mitchell is - why the judge didn't call him? We ask the question: Why should the judge call him? It is our view that the judge has no right to approach the Prime Minister to get the non-payment of his salary resolved.

How do we know that the Prime Minister will not in turn try to make special request of the judge in exchange for facilitating payment of his salary?

Digging one's pit

GRENADA TODAY will never trust the current holder of the office of Prime Minister with any member of the judiciary. History will record that Dr. Mitchell used at least one judge on the island to do some of his political bidding for him.

The current Deputy Political Leader of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), George Prime was shocked when this newspaper approached him a few years ago within minutes of a meeting he had with this judge who was trying to get him to run in Carriacou and Petite Martinique for Mitchell's NNP.

There is no need for us to call any names since that person knows who he is and so too George Prime. It is clear to us that Wildman's role in all of the current impasse in the judiciary is to push the legal knobs for the Mitchell-led government.

The perceived enemies of the regime would be hounded in a legal manner as never seen before in Grenada. None shall be spared as the regime tries to tighten its stranglehold on power in Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique.

The police have already been compromised as calls are made to them from time-to-time on who to pick up and question with a view to bringing politically-motivated charges against them including criminal libel.

Mr. Wildman should expect a legal backlash if he remains in the country under a new regime. It is quite possible that the same police force might be asked to pick him up for questioning on matters relating to a certain offshore bank that collapsed in this country in which depositors mainly from the United States and Canada lost millions of dollars.

There is a saying by old people that we wish to remind Mr. Wildman: One must never dig one pit for someone else but always dig two pits.