News of the sacking of Mrs. Margaret Davies, the lady lawyer and company secretary of Rokel Bank who complained of sexual harassment and workplace against her boss, the Managing Director of RCBank is grossly unfortunate and an affront to institutional interventions and judicial processes initiated by the alleged victim. Margaret joins two other lawyers whose services have been terminated by the chairman of the Board of Rokel Bank despite the trio having a pending action (and contempt action against the said chairman of the board) in the High Court. This sends an unequivocal message that the courts are not supreme after all. Political connections are! The cases of injustice are growing and the judiciary once again appears to be an actively passive accomplice on the wrong side of history. From important constitutional cases not being assigned for years now, to some matters being put on “hold” by monocratic orders to inequitable grant of bail to politically-connected persons and inordinate cases of inequality of justice in most matters. Today, it is three young lawyers being bullied, harassed and their livelihoods deprived by a state institution in the full glare of the public. Their only crime it seems is that they have gone to court not to entreat the judge to send the other party to the gallows but for protection and due process. Notwithstanding the recommendations by the Central Bank, letters from the Bar Association and LAWYERS urging due process and protection for an alleged victim, she has been made to endure the impunities of the system. If lawyers are treated in such disdainful manner when they file papers (not insinuating they should receive any preferential treatment in the courts) imagine for a split second what the the Mamie Fatus and Pa Sories endure at the mercy stool of our justice system.
Let me be clear that injustices of yester years cannot be a validation for any injustice today. At least some of us fought against injustice yesterday and we’re still committed to fighting it today.
Injustice, whether widespread or minuscule, erect firetraps in our nascent democracy. Even our most abhorred enemies deserve their full day in court. Because it is only by assuring our enemies of due process today that we guarantee the same for ourselves tomorrow. I believe in the proverbial saying that injustice anywhere is a threat to development everywhere. We have a duty to make a nation and by treating people unjustly when we wield so much power, authority and have open access to resources is certainly not the way.