Just two Sundays ago, I discussed the inability of our public officials to beg our pardon when they blunder. They show contempt for our intelligence and our own experience when they spin improbable explanations for obvious blundering. The Government has had a very bad fortnight of blunders and ‘no beg-pardons.’ …
Read More »DALY BREAD: I have no confidence left in the JLSC
The furore arising from the appointment as a High Court judge, subsequent resignation and the purported “restoration” of Mrs Marcia Ayers-Caesar, the former Chief Magistrate, as a magistrate has not died down. However, as the story emerges, public opinion now contains feelings of mercy for Mrs Marcia Ayers-Caesar. I am …
Read More »Not even a little beg pardon?! Daly hits arrogance of blundering T&T bodies
My deceased mother, Celia, had a number of priceless expressions. Many of them applied to persons who got “too big for their boots.” Getting too big for your own boots could be a gradual process. When it happened overnight she discerned that it was an immediate attack of “position-itis”—a condition …
Read More »DALY BREAD: Far from closed; JLSC’s damage of the Judiciary must carry consequence!
The Judicial and Legal Services Commission (JLSC) blundered when it appointed Mrs Marcia Ayers-Caesar to the office of a Judge of the High Court. At the time of the JLSC’s decision to appoint her, Mrs Ayers-Caesar was the Chief Magistrate and had a list of unfinished cases before her. One …
Read More »DALY BREAD: The poll tax; why PNM’s property tax could lead to electoral defeat again!
The current Government has fatally underestimated the resistance to the proposed property tax. If it does not make concessions on the methodology of its introduction and of its implementation, the property tax will become a poll tax when it leads to defeat at the polls. Of course, much of the …
Read More »DALY BREAD: Ayers-Caesar fiasco “monumentally troubling;” JLSC members should go
The latest round of appointments to the High Court bench and the ensuing fiasco raises the urgent need to find a constitutional mechanism to hold the Judicial and Legal Service Commission accountable. Steps must be taken with a far less leisurely timetable than the one recently suggested by the Law …
Read More »DALY BREAD: Howe’s that? Daly ponders likelihood of a new storm in T&T
The gathering storm is a Churchill phrase. Winston Churchill used it as the title for the first volume of his massive six-volume history of World War Two. The historical account is given from his perspective as a discredited politician who saw that Germany would re-arm and go to war but …
Read More »DALY BREAD: Coming for someone! How institutionalised corruption led to our violent reality
The public has long ago figured out, but not accepted, that the police cannot catch anybody for murder except for some obvious domestic violence assailants and small fry. Even then, there is ground for suspicion that the small fry are taking the fall for bigger accomplices or for those covering …
Read More »Hanging in disbelief: The truth behind shambolic political posturing over the death penalty
The Privy Council decided in 1993—in the case of Pratt and Morgan—that execution could not lawfully take place more than five years after sentence. It was recommended that a capital appeal should be heard within twelve months of conviction and the entire domestic appeal process completed within two years. I …
Read More »We like it so? Relating cultural factors to underachievement
It has been a recurrent theme of these columns that there are many cultural factors militating against our country moving toward a better and fairer condition. Now I have solid company. Terrence Farrell, economist, attorney, author and commentator, has published another book. It is called: We like it so?—The Cultural …
Read More »Taking a long, hard look: Daly explains why courts can’t save us without better policing
I suppose one can admire the zeal with which the Attorney General, Mr Faris Al Rawi, pursues his causes in the Parliament. Likewise, members of the Opposition have made a number of valid points concerning legislation brought before the Parliament recently. It would of course be more palatable if both …
Read More »Our dilemma: Daly looks at the soft underbelly of Trinidad and Tobago society
Winston Churchill, the glowing imperialist, at the time when he was seeking to have Europe fortified against Nazi Germany, referred to Italy as the soft underbelly of Europe. What Churchill meant was this: However successfully Europe was fortified, it would be vulnerable to the attack through the soft underbelly of …
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