[Paul Lismore] ANOTHER WORLD RANKING THAT COMPLETELY IGNORES THE REALITY IN MAURITIUS

Some organisation called World Justice Project from the USA (a country where the fact that if you are born black and brought before a court of 'justice' you are very likely to be found guilty, despite the poor evidence, and sentenced to long imprisonment and even death..) has released its Rule of Law Index: as usual, Mauritius comes out smelling of roses and our wonderful judicial system has scored a very honourable and largely undeserved ranking of 38th, slightly behind Namibia and Rwanda. 

According to its website, " the Index relies on more than 120,000 household surveys and 3,800 legal practitioner and expert surveys to measure how the rule of law is experienced and perceived worldwide."

One is bound to ask: Was any normal Mauritian canvassed for his/her opinion about this? Or, as is very likely, did it depend entirely on our learned friends spraying bullshit all over that org about how wonderful our justice system is?

I cannot imagine there are many Mauritians, apart from lawyers and their friends and relatives, who would have such a positive view of our lamentable justice system.
Am I being too harsh? Well, if you think so, you only have to look at the reaction of people whenever some violent bastard is released on bail soon after arrest; or when our wonderful magistrates come up with the quite incredible assertion that someone taking the innocence of underage girls deserves no harsher punishment than balier la cour station la police, as the girl "consented" to the sex act! Eoula!

So called "learned" magistrates do not know that an underage child simply cannot give "consent"? By definition, he or she can't, otherwise there would be no need for an age of consent which reflects the maturity of the individual! And yet we often read in our newspapers that one of the main mitigating factors for such a lenient sentence is the "consent' provided by a child, something which is simply not possible. 

Then we have cases where offences committed 5,10, 15, even 20 years ago are now being heard. Is this justice?

Imagine being a victim and your sense of justice and fairness depends entirely on people who apparently do not give a fuck for your pain and misery...Our "justice system" however works exceedingly fast if you steal some lychees from the garden of a knob head: Arrested today, in court tomorrow and sentenced immediately! But if your loved one has been murdered, killed by some stupid driver, maimed and left physically handicapped by some psychopath, or raped by some idiot, wait for many, many years until the learned friends adjust their black gowns and ensure that their faces ooze sufficient arrogance to reflect their own sense of self importance.

That, I am afraid, is the reality of our "justice system".

We had our general elections in November last year, and we have never before seen the high level of protests and complaints about the fairness, or lack of it, of those elections. Over four months later, a matter that should concern every lover of democracy has still not been heard by the Supreme Court and it looks like it won't be for many more months....despite the large number of petitions contesting those elections.

We seem to be on a merry go round where lawyers present claims and counter claims simply to delay the process for as long as possible, and no judge has the balls to say: "Eoula! Asser plin mo fesse ar zot argimans bidons! I will hear the case in full from the 1st working day of next month, whether you like it or not!" 

If our Supreme Court can take such a lackadaisical approach to the most important people participation exercise in our democracy, and continually postpones the hearing whenever Ivan or Pravind raises some fanciful and rather pathetic objection, then that tells you all you need to know about the quality of our "justice system".

It is bad enough that cases of murder and other serious crimes are still being heard 20 years after the act, as in the Bernard Maigrot case, and repetitively postponed because our judges and magistrates incredibly need weeks and often months to decide a ruling on some quite mediocre application....something that a British Judge would rule upon on the same day! Our learned friends can't claim ignorance of this, as most of them were trained in the UK.

So, for those who love to wallow in those quite meaningless rankings, fill your boots! Same as when Transparency International ranks us rather handsomely, and based entirely on the quite mysterious figures presented to it by some idiot here.

The rest of us know that Mauritius is one of the most corrupt countries in the world , despite what these rankings say. It is rather illuminating that Transparency International has never mentioned la cuisine as the cesspit where numerous acts of nepotism and corruption are conceived, plotted, and acted upon right in the centre of our government.

As for our justice system, what else can you expect when our 'free and independent' press act as its official toady and always treats those with a black gown and an ill fitting wig made with horses' pubes with undue reverence and sycophancy? Every new batch of qualified lawyers is greeted with fanfare by the press with photos and interviews of people who have studied for 3 years...and none of that same reverence for doctors who have studied for 5-6 years, or for anyone else with a degree which has taken them...3 years! So, right from the start, these people are treated as demi Gods, and are we surprised then that there is so much complacency and inefficiency in our 'justice system'?

But eh! The Rule of Law Index says we are doing very well, so that's ok then...Transparency International says we are not doing too badly, esp compared to the rest of Africa, so that too is ok.
The reality, the one that we experience daily, tells us a completely different story. 
And the victims of crime are the ones who scandalously are never heard.