ST. GERGE’S, Grenada, CMC – An lawyer who efficiently filed a constitutional movement calling on the Excessive Courtroom to declare flogging a prison offense now desires it to suggest at lower than EC$50,000 (One EC greenback=US$0.37 cents) in compensation to males who’ve been flogged previously.
“I’m glad that the Excessive Courtroom has put an finish to that type of punishment, however I’m not proud of the quantity awarded for damages; it’s too low; I believe it ought to begin at EC$50,000 and never EC$15,000,” mentioned lawyer Jerry Edwin.
He mentioned he would even be submitting a declare on the State to award males and boys who’ve been flogged on the directions of a Justice of the Peace previously.
Edwin mentioned he would search extra monetary compensation from the State as a result of the lads whose names the grievance had been filed acquired punishment from a state judicial officer who ought to have identified higher.
“In line with the regulation, that punishment ought to have been delayed for at the very least 14 days earlier than it was executed. The flogged males ought to have used these 14 days to enchantment the sentence, and the judicial officer who instructed the punishment was an officer of the State who ought to have identified higher than to have the punishment executed forthwith.
“A Justice of the Peace is a creature of statute, and they need to know higher. Sure, a policeman did the flogging, however he was appearing on directions from a Justice of the Peace who’s a judicial officer,” mentioned Edwin, who believes that the minimal of EC$50,000 ought to be the beginning determine for compensation.
In his 83-page judgment, Justice Raulston Glasgow supported the argument that flogging sentences violated the accused proper to enchantment.
“I discover, due to this fact, that within the context of the type of punishment engaged in circumstances of this kind, the suitable to enchantment is a component and parcel of the entry to justice and procedural equity afforded to the claimants and contemplated by part 8 of the structure.
“It’s because to have flogged the claimants earlier than the interval to enchantment in each circumstances had expired would have shut the door on any chance of them exploring the suitable secured to him by the regulation, a proper that introduced them with the potential for reversing the imposition of this merciless type of punishment,” the choose mentioned within the ruling.
Describing flogging as a cruel punishment that dates again to slavery, Edwin mentioned that this type of punishment has not solely induced males and boys bodily ache and embarrassment, nevertheless it has induced a few of them to be fatherless.
“These males have been made to drag down their pants, bend over, and maintain their scrotum whereas mercilessly crushed. This has induced a few of them to be unable to have youngsters, and so I will likely be submitting a declare for the State to compensate them for his or her ache and struggling,” mentioned Edwin.
He has, due to this fact, issued a name for all males who have been ever crushed by the court docket to contact him in order that their names could be included within the class motion lawsuit.
“They have to be compensated. This was brutal, shameless, and all this was performed on the instruction of a judicial officer who didn’t give a poor man who didn’t have a lawyer the chance to enchantment the sentence,” he added.
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