BUT WE BADDER THAN THEM....
THEY DON'T KNOW THE LAW
You would think that anyone would be welcome to attend the opening of this year's High Court sittings, on Wednesday 17 September.
Not if you're the FLOOOGG Bloooog...
When I walked into the security entrance, an erstwhile private security officer stopped me and asked for media ID.
"I don't have media ID," I answered honestly. "Haven't had media ID for 20 years."
"Well, you need ID to get in..." he insisted.
"No, I don't," I insisted. "I come in here all the time. Ask them."
Two cops sitting to the side were paying attention. Officer 448 answered the question definitively. I needed a media ID. The only problem with that was he already recognized me as Jason Sifflet from The FLOGG Blog.
"If the two cops recognize me as Jason Sifflet from The FLOGG Blog, what do you need ID for?"
"Because those are the rules," Officer 448 lied. It was not his fault. The slaves of the system must always go above and beyond the law to please their masters if they want to keep their jobs in the system.
"Those are not the rules, 448," I replied, confidently.
He jumped and looked at the number on his shirt as if he forgot for a moment that he was the only 448 on the RSLPF. The runaround continued for a while, but I didn't let them get to me. In fact, I joked with them about how ridiculous the situation was.
In my head, I was already writing the article headlined: FLOGG BLOGGER DENIED ACCESS TO HIGH COURT OPENING!!!! The private security, realizing that I was right in every respect and that he and his cop friends were being backed into a corner, decided to pass the buck. He went looking for courthouse staff to confirm that he was right to wrongfully deny me access.
A redskinned man in the white shirt shouted to me from across the waiting area outside the High Court: "It's too late. You can't go in. We have to keep the door closed because of the air conditioning."
"That's a lame excuse," I smiled, through tiger's teeth. Even the cops and the security guard laughed at him.
Belittled but not beaten, he drew closer. In this moment, he was the defender of the system, the onyl thing standing between their continued corruption and their exposure. He recongized that he would have to coax me out, somehow, because I wasn't leaving on my own.
"You should have come on time," he said, raising his eyebrows, hanging his justification on my impunctuality. Suddenly, instead of Officer 448 being the star of the story I was writing in my mind, the redskinned liar was. Officer 448 was immediately absolved of his sins. The cop was just a slave, after all. This red skinned liar was a house servant. A much more valuable target for Negmarron justice.
I gave up on breaking into the High Court opening session. I was satisfied to start digging up his grave while he was still alive and expose everything I found in there. I was literally ready for a strategic withdrawal.
But a funny thing happened on the way to being denied my rightful access to the halls of justice.
"Hi, Jaaaasooon," a civil servant friend said, as she slipped undisturbed past security. Another woman came from another direction. They both headed for the door of the High Court.
I looked at 448 and the red skinned liar and slowly, deliberately turned my back on them and went to hold the door open for the gentle ladies.
As any good gentleman should.
The open door revealed a room that looked like a cheap Nigerian movie version of EYES WIDE SHUT. The killuminati of the legal fraternity were all decked out in their black satanic cloaks. They were seated according to rank and privilege, with High Court judges like Justice Belle and Cumberbatch sitting high up over everyone, House Speaker Peter Foster and Queen's Counsels Michael Gordon and Peter Foster sitting near the front. The rest of the killuminati dutifully and obediently sat in the, uh, stands, I guess you would call them....
The ladies politely went inside as I held open the door.
Without looking back at the red skinned liar, the chickenshit security guard and the slavish Officer 448, I entered the court room. I walked as far up front as I could and sat down.
I had finally broken in.
Now they would not be able to get me out without facing some terrible consequences.
For the next few months, we will take a look at what kind of justice they mete out to Negmarron.
While they put others on trial, The FLOGG Blog will put them on trial.
The judges.
The lawyers.
The system itself.
Because, if Dame Janice Pereira DBE, Chief Justice of the OECS Supreme Court is right, small island justice has progressed far beyond the cruel, classist, slow and corrupt affair that it was when native islanders first started going to law school in the hopes of changing everything.
If what she says is true, then Lucians are about to get a taste of hi-tech, upgraded, compassionate justice that protects the weak and the helpless.
Somehow, though, it seems more realistic to expect that nothing has changed. Dame Janice was expressing her best wishful thoughts. All the evidence so far only confirms that the native lawyers who should have changed everything did nothing but perpetuate the abusive, slow and corrupt system they inherited from the British. They collaborated with it and then made it more corrupt than colonialism ever was.
And then, they want to bitch about working conditions in court and delays in justice. Lol, slap!
If judges really wanted to speed up justice, like Dame Perreira insisted they do, they would be using smartphones instead pen and paper in paper in court.
As things stand, the biggest single hold up in St Lucian justice is not the police, the prisons or any of the other usual suspects. It is the judges themselves, who are still living in early 20th century and refuse to apply the power of technology that sits in their pockets right now, in a positive way.
P.S. Justice Suzy d'Auvergne did not like thei dirty little boys club. She had to keep her head down to make progress. She might have been a little rough on Negmarron sometimes when we were bad. But let us never mistake our good lady for one of them. She was better than that.
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| "Why, thank you, Jason. You always were my little favorite criminal...." |
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