Sentencing a policeman

Recently a police sergeant with an impeccable 20-year record of service was sentenced to four months' imprisonment for causing a very slight, uncertified injury to a foreign woman after being provoked for 30 minutes.

This sentence is ridiculous and absurd, especially when we often hear that criminals of far more serious crimes leave the courts with a conditional discharge, if not free. Criminals who have committed attempted murders or thefts must be having the time of their lives, for they know that the court is very lenient with them, while petty offences get jail sentences.

Whom are the judiciary trying to fool? By sentencing a policeman to jail for a petty offence, are they trying to recover some of the credibility they have lost? Besides the fact that various mitigating circumstances the police sergeant had in his favour were simply ignored by the court, whatever the circumstances, he was guilty.

In his ruling the magistrate referred to the fact that policemen should be trained to deal with certain situations. Is reacting to a bypass operation or from the scare of being infected with hepatitis part of the training policemen receive?

The police sergeant, instead of opting to get boarded out, remarkably returned to his job instead of doing nothing while still receiving social benefits. Is this the message the court is sending to people in the same situation.

To my knowledge, suspended sentences or a conditional discharge have been introduced for minor offences and not serious crimes. It is about time that Parliament starts looking into certain abuses perpetrated by the judiciary in the name of the law by creating an independent commission.

Common sense, besides honesty, should be a primary requisite for members of the judiciary, and their work should be reviewed every two years. If they don't obtain the desired results their position should not be renewed.

I sincerely hope that this ridiculous and absurd sentence is overturned in the appeal or else a greater injustice will be committed. At least this will give the people the reassurance that someone from the judiciary still has some common sense.