The Impeachment Saga And Justice Leveson’s Report On British media

Charitha Ratwatte

December 18, 2012

The recent impeachment process conducted by the relevant tribunal was overshadowed by a parallel process of impeachment conducted by a section of the media. That rump of the media attempted to play the role, of prosecutor, witness, judge, jury and hangman all in one role.

The public were regaled by headline after headline, detailing the alleged misdeeds of the targeted individual, without any opportunity at all to make an objective assessment of the evidence, did the evidence emanate from an authorised source, was it genuine, was its veracity tested either by the cross examination of under solemn oath of the person making the allegation of evidentiary value, or if it was a document, by the Examiner of Questioned Documents. Details of matters which by law , could not be disclosed to the general public , unless under very special and controlled circumstances, such as bank account details, were the stuff of the front pages of these gutter newspapers and headlines of the radio and television.

Neither was the accused given an opportunity to present a defence. Though a so-called ban on reporting on the internal processes of the impeachment saga was reported to be in force, this was violated patently and blatantly by the gutter snipes concerned. Indeed the worldwide web and the internet was a great source of information for those who wished to learn of all aspects of the story as it unfolded and chose to analyse and filter and determine what the possible of an iota of truth, if at all, may be present in the overall fabric painted on the subject in the gutter media frenzy.

Farcical and comical

The episode by which the accused was supposedly presented with 1,000 odd pages of documents, which were not proved as genuine, in any sense of the word, nor were they established to emanate from a proper authorised source, and summarily ordered to virtually disprove them, within less than 24 hours, implying that if they could not be proved to be untrue within a certain timeframe, they would be deemed to be true and, the impeachment would proceed on the basis of them being truthful documents, since they could not be proved to be false! This is a farcical and comical reverse of the burden of proof.

Normally, in terms of the law of evidence and in any civilised environment, a person who produces a document before another and requests that it be relied upon as proof of any fact or circumstance, is under an obligation to prove, that it is a genuine document emanating from the source which legally should have the custody of documents of that nature and that the facts stated in the document are true. Here, the documents are dumped on the accused, which has no idea who has concocted them, or from where they have been produced, with no person claiming that they are true, and within a completely unreasonable timeframe, the accused is burdened with proving that the documents are untrue!

The accused and the legal team defending the accused then withdrew from the proceedings. It was reported that taunts and insults were hurled at the accused by another bunch of gutter snipes. The gutter media thereafter goes onto insist that since the accused withdrew from the proceedings unwilling to be a party to such a parody of injustice that it must be an admission of guilt!

That part of the tribunal which was not made of politicians in Government then withdrew from the proceedings, objecting to the lack of a fair procedure among other things. After both the accused, the defending legal team and the non Government members of the tribunal had withdrawn, the tribunal, which earlier declared that witnesses would not be called, suddenly, inexplicably, about faced, according to reports, and decided to call witnesses and record evidence.

These witnesses, supposedly 16 in all, which are reported to include a Supreme Court Judge, the Secretary to the President and the Secretary to the Judicial Service Commission, were safe from any possibility of their evidence being tested, but readers may rest assured that in the furtherance of natural justice, the rump of the tribunal members would have questioned them at length and in detail. The worthy witnesses themselves, mature, educated, experienced bodies, must have realised the nature of the mockery they were willing or unwilling participants. If and when the proceedings are made public, we will no doubt see a forensic cross-examination process recorded!

Another media report says that an offer of a suitably high appointment and negation of bribery charges cases against a certain individual were made to the accuser’s lawyers by a certain high level person, if the accused gives up the fight and throws in the towel. The result of the alleged plea bargaining attempt is not yet in the public domain.

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