THE SLOW DRIFT BACK TO A ONE PARTY STATE IN SEYCHELLES

THE SLOW DRIFT BACK TO A ONE PARTY STATE

If the free press in a democracy is akin to the illumination of many candles in an otherwise area of darkness, the decision by the publishers of REGAR this week to stop publication diminishes the total amount of light available. The announcement by REGAR newspaper that it will cease publication as of today sends a very loud alarm about the drift through stealth of our new found democracy towards the one party state, that every Seychellois, regardless of political affiliation or persuasion should be seriously concerned about.

The move is the latest in what has become a war by other means conducted by the leaders of the Seychelles Peoples Progressive Front (SPPF), which has held the levers of power in our country for the last 29 years, against all who hold contrary opinions and beliefs. The war has, lately, been conducted with a particular zeal as if it was the last battle.

The latest was the physical assault by the Special Support Unit (SSU) on 3rd October on the Leader of the Opposition and other elected officials of our country - a show of total disrespect, disdain and contempt of the law and the Constitution by the ruling party, which, as everyone knows, has the total operational and political control of this group of “policemen” recruited not for maintenance of law and order, but as armed shock troops at the beck and call of the political high command.

The irony being that only a few weeks before, the Ambassador of France, a country considered the cradle of democracy, was pictured on television witnessing French gendarmes expressing their satisfaction for the training in crowd control they had just given the Seychelles police. Yet so far we have not heard even a whimper of public protest by France condemning this assault on our democratic institution. Perhaps we should not expect more.

The decision by the publishers of REGAR to stop publication of the paper this week follows the ruling by the Supreme Court judge Ranjun Perera that they should pay record damages to a civil servant for defamation. According to the publishers of REGAR this is the latest in a long list of “unjustified lawsuits” brought by the leaders of the SPPF against them, designed to cripple them financially and to shut them down. In his statement to Reporters Without Borders, the editor of REGAR, Roger Mancienne termed the latest ruling as “judicial harassment.”

The decision has already attracted international attention. The internationally respected Reporters Without Borders, which monitors the state of press freedom around the world, issued a news flash to all publications of the free world expressing its dismay at the turn of events. In its newsflash Reporters Without Borders said that the REGAR still faces a long list of lawsuits with demand for damages totalling SR 12,000,000 by, amongst others, former President Albert Rene and current President James Michel.

The ruling against REGAR is the latest in a long struggle to uphold and safeguard freedom of the press and democracy in Seychelles. The latest ruling has revealed not only how subservient the judiciary has been to the ruling group. It has additionally dealt a body blow to our nascent democracry by the very institution which was crated to defend our Constitution. The suit against REGAR was prosecuted by no other than the Chairman of the Constitutional Appointment Authority, lawyer France Bonte – who chairs the constitutional body of three which recommends Supreme Court judges for appointment by the President of the Republic including that of Judge Prerera.

This ruling also breaks with precedent in that Judge Perera has awarded punitive damages for the first time in the history of our jurisprudence. According to members of the legal profession, Judge Perera, in this case, has gone against his own previous ruling and those established by the Seychelles Court of Appeal, the highest court in the land.