The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

In the midst of a near-existential illegal firearm/murder crisis, it is most disheartening to hear government ministers still paying lip service to the most abused of our sacred cows: the maintenance of maximum judicial discretion throughout our criminal justice system.

It is time to admit that Bahamian judges have, as a group, disqualified themselves from the exercise of discretion over the two areas that matter most in our struggle with illegal handguns and repeat offenders.

The first of these areas (the grant of bail to people charged with murder) requires and deserves a constitutional amendment to limit a discretion that judges have misused to an extent that is very clear to anyone acquainted with the details of our murder statistics.

Hundreds of Bahamians have met violent deaths in recent years as a result of poorly exercised judicial discretion over bail. And yet our politicians consider it more important to pursue constitutional changes over matters (like gender issues) whose urgency emanates from nothing more than cultural and political trends in foreign countries, magnified by television and social media.

The second area (sentencing for illegal firearm possession) requires no constitutional amendment at all. In fact, in setting mandatory sentences of no less than ten years for illegal firearm possession, we would only be bringing ourselves into line with Great Britain, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica and Barbados (our nearest historical and constitutional comparatives).

Yet we cannot even find it in ourselves to do that, despite the obvious fact that it would save many lives and probably also spare us economically perilous international headlines.

It is time Bahamian politicians began to take more seriously their role as guardians of the physical safety of Bahamians, which ought to trump all other considerations, including a blindly repetitive (and seldom justified) commitment to a maximalist principle of judicial discretion.

ANDREW ALLEN

February 4, 2024