LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Sir, Not so long ago, Judge Runjan Perera awarded damages to Minister Pat Pillay in a libel case against Regar in the sum of R450,000, after the newspaper wrote an article questioning the sale of a government owned house at La Misere to the minister, well below its market value and without an independent evaluation among other issues. Regar was right to have had raised this issue for public knowledge even though it paid the ultimate price for it.

Minister Pillay’s lawyer in the case was non other than France Bonte, who is not only the chairman of the Constitutional Appointment Authority (CAA), the body that recommends judges for appointment, but he is also a member of the central committee of the ruling party, the SPPF.

Not long after the minister’s case against Regar, Judge Perera found himself face to face (so to speak) again with Mr. Bonte. This time, it was in a case of kidnapping brought by the niece of Minister Pillay against Aeroflot Airline. The irony of it all, was that this time around, Mr. Bonte was the lawyer representing Aeroflot. The eventual verdict was that Aeroflot was found guilty as charged and the court awarded damages to the Minister’s niece. This is the ridiculous if not laughable part: Judge Perera awarded a measly R10,000 to the kidnapped lady. The judge it seemed was more concerned with the Minister’s reputation than with the welfare and the obvious abused of the fundamental rights and dignity of a woman.

Needless to say, the court of appeal eventually reduced considerably by over 60 percent the hefty award of R450, 000 Judge Perera granted against Regar to Minister Pillay. And the kidnapped lady’s initial award of a R10, 000 was remarkably increased by over 12 times more.

It had over the past years became remarkably obvious that for certain foreign judges, when applying for work in Seychelles, their first consideration and priority was not necessarily to dispense justice fairly and correctly according to the law, but to find ways and means instead to please certain individuals in Government in particular, so as to get a renewed work contract, when their first one expired, as well as to acquire a Seychellois citizenship, whereby their job is secured until they reach the age of 70.

It has also become obvious to many Seychellois of every walk of life that the judiciary in Seychelles is not independent as the constitution demands that it should be. How could it be otherwise anyway, when certain of it’s very senior judges begged for and got special personal favours from the executive branch of government : favours that ordinary Seychellois can never hoped to get in all their existing lives. Even the former Mauritian Prime Minister, Paul Beranger realizes the glaring deficiency in our judiciary. In a press conference recently when he was here on an official visit, the Prime Minister made a scathing remark about our judiciary in relation to attracting real and mutually beneficial investment to the country by saying: “if you Seychelles do not have an independent judiciary, you will be just a blah, blah, blah.

Thank you for the space.

L.P