Letter to the Editor
Ill Legal Department
Dear Sir,
In fulfilling an intention which I had earlierindicated in a letter to the legal department, I would like totake this opportunity to publicly object to a ruling they madea short while ago. The matter pertains to a marine conservationlaw enforcement incident which took place in Little Cayman lastyear, and, in my opinion, the subsequent improper (if not suspicious)dismissal of the case by the legal department. I shall keep thisshort.
Acting in my capacity as a fisheries officer and special constable,I had warned a group of four individuals for prosecution for takingover the limit per boat (namely two) of lobster, and had giventhe case to a marine enforcement officer of the Department ofthe Environment. The officer submitted the case file on the lastday of the allowable time frame in which submission could be done,and the file given to a crown counsel of the legal department.Charges were formally laid in court, and the defendants (and ortheir lawyer(s) subsequently appeared therein on a couple of occasionsfor mentioning. Throughout this period, we were made aware ofseveral attempts by the defendants (via verbal contact with certainpeople) to have the case dropped, some of which amounted to threats.The last of these was a phone call threatening a civil suit againstmyself and another fisheries officer involved in the case.
Just recently, we were notified that the legal department hadadjourned the case, citing a number of feeble reasons for thedecision, with their greatest concern being evidence that oneof the defendants was indeed part of the group. This was despitethe fact that all defendants had arrived in the same vehicle,entered the water together, swam as a group together, conversedwith each other, returned to the beach together (where they wereintercepted), and finally left in the same vehicle in which theyarrived. Futhermore, the defendant in question was seen by morethan one witness to remove his bag (containing two lobster) fromthe boat upon arrival at shore. Finally, one of the two lobsterin the bag had a large hole in it, obviously made from a speargun carried by another of the group. I had come to the conclusionthat the defendants were trying to use the "he's not withus" tactic to create a loophole through which they could"legally" keep the two additional lobster, but werenot quite clever enough to "cover their tracks" so tospeak.
Nevertheless, the legal department dropped the case, concludingthat it was not in the best interest of the public to prosecutethe defendants over two lobsters.
I ask, who are they to decide that the public interest is notserved by the enforcement of our laws, whether it be two lobstersover the limit or ten? Is our marine conservation law any lessimportant than, say, exceeding the speed limit by 5 mph? The lawstipulates in most cases a clear delineation between what is allowedand what is not. There have been instances were some violatorsof the marine conservation law have been prosecuted successfullyfor less. Does the legal department have an allowable margin forerror here in certain cases and for certain people, which is notstipulated in the law?
Such a predisposition will only erode public respect for the law,not to mention discouraging those who make the effort to upholdthe law, whether by reporting violations, or enforcing them.
I can only conclude that the legal department either just couldn'tbe bothered, lacked the legal prowess to successfully argue thecase, or were in some way influenced by other parties acting onbehalf of the defendants to drop the charges. Either way, suchineptness is a waste of the peoples time and money and shouldbe rectified.
Phil Bush