Gordon Robinson | Job description needed?

Gene Autry and I were playing against the Beast and the Dunce in a close, hard fought domino contest.

With the score at five-all I drew an unbalanced hand (no fives; no fours) but posed double six because I held three sixes in all so was averse to attempted suicide in a game governed by Autry’s “Holder-of-Double-Six-poses” rule. The Beast played six-deuce; Autry double-deuce and the Dunce calmly contributed deuce trey. This allowed me to go two-sixes; pass the Beast and essentially secure the team win.

The Beast, normally the most easygoing of people asked The Dunce why he didn’t cut the pose.

“Mi looking fi five” the Dunce replied. His hand was six-five; double-five; five-deuce; five-ace; six-ace; trey-blank; and deuce-trey”

“Why not play six-five? You have four pieces?”

“Yu really want mu kill mi owna double-five” the Dunce retorted. “If a macca mek it jook yu!” Before the Beast exploded, permanent spectator Haemorrhoid postponed his usual complaints about the “piles and piles” of files on his desk and stepped in with a shaggy dog story to cool temperatures.

“Jesus and Satan were having an argument about who managed to get the most out of their computer. This was going on for days so God, tired of the bickering, said, ‘Cool it. I’m going to set up a test that will run for two hours, after which I’ll judge who has done the better job.’

So they sat at their keyboards and typed away. They did spreadsheets; wrote reports; sent faxes; sent emails with and without attachments; downloaded; did genealogy reports; made cards.

They did every known job.

But, just a few minutes before the two hours were up, lightening flashed across the sky; thunder rolled; and rains came down hard. Of course, the electricity went off.

Eventually the rain stopped and electricity came back on. Satan screamed, ‘I lost it all when the power went off. What am I going to do?’

He asked Jesus if he had also lost his work. Jesus just sat, smiled and calmly turned his computer back on. The screen glowed. When He pushed ‘print’ all His work was there.

‘How did He do it?’ Satan asked.

God smiled and said, ‘Jesus Saved.’”

Haemorrhoid explained to the Dunce that, if he sat second-in-hand (below the poser), his job would be to save his hand by not leading away from double-five. But, as fourth-in-hand (above the poser), his job was to attack from strength immediately hoping to pass the poser.

I remembered Haemorrhoid’s tall tale regarding doing your job when I painstakingly read through DPP’s 12 page “Ruling” in the matter of a residential construction at 11 Charlemont Drive in breach of every conceivable building and environmental permit.

You might have expected a DPP, doing her job as a Minister of Justice, to put the matter before the court after which any named defendants could raise any defence they considered appropriate. Instead, like the textbook definition of a lawyer (one who writes a 15,000 word document and calls it a “Brief”) DPP was at pains to rely on the perpetrators’ alleged “statute-barred” defense to refrain from prosecuting yet another referral from the Integrity Commission (IC) and to pass the buck to KSAMC.

According to DPP the NRCA Act provides that, unless NRCA can satisfy the court it couldn’t have been aware in time “All prosecutions for offences against this Act or any regulations made thereunder shall be commenced within twelve calendar months next after the commission of such offence….” So the question that only a court should be asked to answer is when was the offence committed? Is it a continuing offence so that time for prosecuting hasn’t yet begun to run? If not, was the offence committed at the commencement or completion of construction? If the time has indeed passed, does NCRA get credit for the time spent “investigating” by IC and would its Director of Corruption Prosecution’s referral date be deemed the date NRCA was “aware” of the offence?

DPP’s job is to prosecute once there’s prima facie evidence of a crime. This DPP has found “the allegations support the laying of criminal charges” yet has laid none. This same DPP laid fraud charges against a young, innocent Attorney-at-Law, not a public servant, based, by her own public statement, on “the evidence and credibility of the complainant” who turned out to be one of the most incredible witnesses of all time.

Why the reluctance in this case?

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com