Two Appeal Court judges have hit back in the public row over “the executive’s” failure to hang murderers.
The judges did not name DPM Cynthia Pratt. But as National Security Minister, Pratt is “the executive” responsible for hanging to whom the judges were referring. They slammed Pratt shortly before she issued a writ suing Punch for allegedly defaming her on hangings.
Appeal Court President Justice Dame Joan Sawyer and Justice Emmanuel Osadebay said that they made rulings on murder cases. But they said it was the job of “the executive”, or Pratt, to order officials to read the death warrant to murderers, so that they can be changed. In her nearly four years as Minister Of National Security & Police, Pratt has NOT had the death warrant read to one killer.
If DPM Pratt had done so, numerous killers would almost certainly have been hanged.
Yet, Pratt, an ordained Baptist Rev, has still claimed that she is in favour of hanging-but the courts were stopping hangings.
So, in effect, the Justices are accusing Pratt of LYING, or misleading the public on hanging by trying to shift the blame on to the courts.
The Justices stressed that the two daily newspapers, Tribune and Guardian, were guilty of inaccurate reporting by wrongly blaming the courts for no hangings when “the executive”, or Pratt, was at fault. They further stressed that the failure of Pratt to carry out hangings had nothing to do with the courts.
Justices Dame Sawyer and Osadebay made their observations on hanging last Monday during the
appeal case of Rev Cyril Sands versus Assemblies Of God Churches. The Justices agreed with lawyer Wayne Munroe, who was representing Rev Sands, when he said that The Punch was the only paper to report correctly that the Government’s failure to hang killers was the ļ¾ fault of Pratt and NOT the courts.
Source: The Punch, Bahamas
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