ON THE TRACK OF JUSTICE
The past seven months have been a whirlwind of
learning for me. Here’s just some of what I’ve learned.
The ‘danse macabre’
There should be a preparatory course on what
you meet when you get to prison. If there were, the smell would properly be the
first thing on the syllabus. When the detainee squats in front of you (yes,
they don’t sit, they squat, who knew?) the smell hits you with a punch and
threatens to overwhelm you. Many are in the same clothes they were arrested in
and if they’re lucky (or if they have spent long enough), one of a few changes
of infrequently washed clothes.
The story’s almost always the same, from the
macabre to the mundane. People getting caught up for the most trivial of
incidents and even in the case of one detainee, for simply standing in a market
place.
We listen with professional disdain, while
burning with the righteous anger of justice inside. But when we get to court
and ask to see those FIRs, there’s a shocker more often than not. In the case of
one detainee supposedly pegged for Trespass, there was even an additional
offence of ‘Exhuming dead bodies”. The righteous anger of justice is confused
but defend is what we must and the ‘danse macabre’ continues.
Prosecutorial discretion
I learned this is more than legal terminology.
They’re words that literally rule the lives of detainees. To the prosecutor,
the difference between the exercise of his discretion one way or another is no
more than the scribble of a pen. To the detainee, this difference is counted in
months, and in some pitiable cases: years, curing away on the racks of the
state guest house that is prison.
Those two words, DPP’s advice, have taken on
the specter of the word of God and everybody, detainee, his lawyer and even the
court must wait humbly until the mighty discretion is exercised. In the
interim, the detainee gets further mentions and his lawyer has many ‘few more
days’ to handle other ‘pressing matters’.
At least, until we step in and get the DPP to
do what no one else seems interested in seeing him do. “Excuse us sir, please
exercise your discretion…”
Every day’s a good day to do good
Planning isn’t easy. It often looks like no
more than a lot of pointing and talking but it’s much more than that. What’s
worse than planning is planning that goes to waste. But unfortunately, you
don’t get to pick and choose.
A full week of planning, several man hours and
a lot resources for this one visit to Oke Kure prison and we were stoked to be
on the track of justice once again. This was our second visit to the prison and
we were fired up to interview as many detainees as possible.
Then the day starts out rainy and we’re first
cooped up in the Clinic, waiting for a bit o’ sunshine. The rain finally tapers
off and we head off on our way. But on getting the prison we’re told “the
prisoners are like salt, they can’t come out in the rain”. And we’re like “It’s
barely drizzling”, “we weren’t going to interview them in the rain na”. But no
show.
After a failed trip that took us the best part
of 6 hours, missed classes, and in some cases tests, this is us ready to do
good another day…
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