THE BAIL BILL

Sometime this afternoon the Parliament will debate a Bill that the Government says is urgently needed in its fight against the criminal elements in the society. The nub or centre of this piece of legislation is the proposal by our political masters that if a person is charged with possession of an illegal (unlicensed) firearm that he will not be eligible for bail for at least 120 days. The arguments for this legislation are that it is desperately needed because the criminal elements in the society are running amok and the time (120 days) is needed to organize the protection of witnesses and to get the evidence together in order to secure a conviction.


Now, bail is a common law right. In other words, it is sacrosanct that a person's freedom will not be taken away without a conviction by a Court of competent jurisdiction. Put another way, your freedom cannot be taken away without a trial. Now, there are certain exceptions to this right, most of which (if not all) relate to offences such as murder and treason which carry the death penalty. But for almost every other crime your right to freedom trumps everything else.


So? Why should we (because the Parliament is us ... represents all of us) want to take away our basic right to freedom before a conviction? Is this a good idea? Tell me: is there anybody out there who believes  that there is no corruption in the police service? Is there anybody who believes that nobody has ever been wrongly or unfairly charged by the police? Is there anybody who believes that there are no corrupt politicians? And if there is nobody who believes this, is there anybody who believes that a corrupt politician/public official has never used his position to get a corrupt police officer to maliciously and falsely charge somebody?


And that is the whole point about the objections to the Bail Bill. The Government is putting out the propaganda that this legislation is needed to curb the violent crime that is gripping the nation. But is this really true? Couldn't the violent crime be curbed by better detection AND rapid convictions? At the moment the conviction rate is nothing short of pathetic. And please don't talk about how long it takes trials to happen! Just the other day two men were freed of a murder charge after ten years in the Remand Yard! TEN years!! Can you imagine being locked up for that length of time and then being found not guilty?!? How would you feel? And can you imagine how you would feel if (for example) you were 'interfering' with somebody's wife or husband and the offended spouse used his/her connections to have you falsely charged and locked up for 120 days (that's 4 months, by the way) and not able to get bail!?


Our system of law is based on the premise that it is better for ten guilty men to go free than one innocent man to hang. It is a rule that I subscribe to. I recognize absolutely the terrible state of our nation. I recognize that most of us are living in self created "jails" while the criminals roam free. And, like most other people, I really have no sympathy for them. But there is a grave danger that we are 'throwing the baby out with the bath water' with this proposed law. It is not a panacea to the problems that confront us and will only create other problems that we don't need. Heck! Don't you remember how we were told that the Anti Gang legislation was so very badly needed? And now, after what feels like a thousand years later not one person has even been charged under that law! So?


No. This Bail Bill will not solve our problems. The best way to solve our problems is to have better policing, more convictions and an efficient judicial system. But that's another story again!!