Smelling a rat

Certain subtle manoeuvres occasionally give rise to suspicion. Over the years I have become wiser to the modus operandi of this present administration. In fact, in its approach to certain pre-intended reforms this government always lets out certain feelers to note how strong the opposition to them would be. Once the government feels it can override smoothly the criticism it will embark on such reforms. When the feeling is the opposite the government would then prove to be more hesitant.

Another way of going about it is for the government to create itself certain obstacles with regard to a given practice and it will then take the opportunity to state that the particular operation is no longer functioning efficiently and must therefore be revamped.

Lately, out of the blues, the Registrar of the Courts has decided arbitrarily to cap the fees of court experts. This in itself and on the face of it does not seem to be a bad thing but behind all this there could be a far more sinister undertone.

One of the most important functions of our magistrates is the conducting of judicial enquiries. The competence of our courts in this respect is far reaching and at times regards also the investigation of the administration itself. Thus, the absolute independence of our judiciary even with regard to inquiries is paramount. If our magistrates were not totally independent and totally free from interference from the executive branch of state they would prove utterly incapable in executing impartially and in the best way such an important function.

The measures taken recently by the government are creating a disruption and this in no small way in the processing of public inquiries. In order to be able to conduct an inquiry it is indispensable for the investigating magistrate to be able to appoint experts of his particular choice in order to assist him in this work. After the new tariffs were imposed these experts are refusing to swear in their reports before they are paid the sums due to them by law while others are refusing any additional appointments.

The registrar has imposed a maximum fee of Lm40 and this with regard to any report to be drawn up by a given expert. This amount is a pittance since it is ridiculous to expect an expert who might have heard a plurality of witnesses and acceded on site on various occasions to be content with such a meagre sum which would not even cover the expenses incurred by him.

I do not believe that the government has taken this position solely in order to cut down costs but I feel the minister concerned here has a hidden agenda. Notwithstanding the protests by the experts in question and notwithstanding even the timely intervention of the Chamber of Advocates, the government will procrastinate. If my gut feeling is right, in all probability the minister will soon issue a press release and argue that magisterial inquiries are proving to be too costly and radical reforms will have to be introduced. Then, as confusion will continue to reign and public inquiries will come to a halt, it will prove just ripe for the minister concerned to propose the pre-intended reforms.

Only the government knows what it is intent on doing. It is a fact that for some time now the Minister of Justice or his Parliamentary Secretary have been dwelling on the idea of appointing a restricted list of available court experts, hand picked by the administration. Here the magistrate will be bound by law to nominate people exclusively from this list and this even if the particular inquiring magistrate would have no confidence in the particular expert nominated by the government. Such a scenario is disturbing indeed since it would greatly reduce if not extinguish the independence of the inquiring magistrate.

In such a hypothesis it would prove very difficult indeed for members of the judiciary to conduct public inquiries when these might relate to the workings of the administration itself or in highly polarised cases. The reason is that the experts would be appointed by the administration itself and hence can never be regarded as totally independent court officials. Such reforms will therefore prove catastrophic and will disrupt in no small way the workings of our judiciary. Undoubtedly, therefore, such reforms should find resistance from one and all.

The scope of this article is to raise early awareness of what might be in the pipeline. Chamber of Advocates please take note!

Dr Herrera is a Labour MP.