On September 15, 2006, two cases reached their conclusion at the Supreme Court of Mauritius and both judgements were passed down by Judge Paul Lam Shang Leen. One received an inordinate amount of coverage in the national press whilst the other one rated barely a mention in the newspapers. The reporting of both cases by the national press highlighted the nature of the justice game in Mauritius and emphasized the unwritten rules of that particular game that ensure that the dice are more often than not loaded in favour of the rich and the powerful.

I have read Judgement 2006 SCJ 221, delivered by Judge Lam Shang Leen and I will limit my comments on that case to simply quoting the salient aspects of that judgement and leave the readers to decide whether our justice system has got its priorities right. ?I have no hesitation in accepting the version of plaintiff n° 1 which had been substantially supported by her daughter?, the Judge concluded unambiguously and it is only fair now to present the reader with the testimony of the victim (plaintiff n° 1) as elucidated in the Judge?s own words: ??.in the early morning of November 16, 1997, at about 5 or 6 am, defendant, along with his driver, one Navin, and four other men unknown to her, called at her residence. She was awakened by the banging noise at her front door. After opening the front door, she was confronted by a tall man who told her to open quickly the rear door where the defendant was impatiently waiting to have access to the house. Although the defendant had the keys to the house, he was unable to make use of them to have access to the house as plaintiff n° 1 had put additional padlocks on the doors for security purposes. After allowing the defendant and the other men in the house, and under the order of the defendant, she was shoved to her bedroom by the four strangers where she was tied to her bed naked, after her night gown had been torn off. The minor child who was sleeping on that bed was terrified and was taken away along with plaintiff n° 2 to the latter?s bedroom and ordered by the defendant to remain in that room. The defendant then assaulted her with much violence. He tried to suffocate her by pressing a pillow over her mouth in which was inserted her hair which the defendant had cut. Defendant threatened to cut off her nipples but did not do so. However, her long hair was clipped as well as her pubis hair and her sex was incised. She and the children had been traumatized and they were ejected from the house?? The Judge also concluded that ??plaintiff n° 2 must have endured a harrowing moment that morning owing to the conduct of the defendant? Her version that the hair of her half sister had been cut by the defendant as well as the fact that they had to shout; scream in despair to save their mother from the grip of the defendant coupled with the fact that her half sister was so terrified that she wet her underwear had remained unchallenged?.

The defendant in that case is a rich businessman called Kian Tye Ah-Ling; plaintiff n°1 is his mistress, plaintiff n° 2 is his step daughter, and plaintiff n° 3 is Ah-Ling?s own daughter and step sister to plaintiff n° 2 and had her hair chopped off and threatened with having her tongue cut off during that incident.

No mention of ?bad faith?

Ah-Ling had acquired a mistress and ?kept? her and her young daughter from a previous relationship for 12 years. This liaison produced another daughter and Ah-Ling ensured that the mother and children had adequate accommodation and sufficient money for household and schooling expenses. He then found (or acquired) another mistress, decided that mistress number one was now surplus to requirement, and stopped visiting her. The rumour mills started to work overtime and he soon heard that his mistress was becoming very close to one of the neighbours. How do you think such a pillar of society would react to the news that his neglected mistress was apparently seeking solace and comfort in the arms of another man? He did what he thought anyone would do if he found someone trespassing on his property, except that he apparently found it easier to confront a woman rather than deal directly with the male interloper. Even then, he had to arm himself with four goons in order to teach a woman and her two young daughters a lesson that, according to the Judge, had left them ?seriously traumatized?.

Ah-Ling maintained in his defence that he had only slapped her and that she must have mutilated herself. Fortunately, the only person in the world who would believe such nonsense did not sit in judgement of the case and Ah-Ling was found guilty and condemned to pay ?Rs 625 000 in moral damages. This includes Rs 500 000 to the mutilated woman as, according to Judge Paul Lam Shang Leen, she is now married, has had another child, and has apparently been ?vindicated? by the press coverage of the savagery inflicted upon her at the time. The judge awarded Rs 50,000 to Ah-Ling?s daughter and Rs 75,000 to the other girl as the trauma of witnessing such a brutal assault on her mother made her miss school for a few months.

This brutal assault took place on November 16, 1997 and the case reached its judicial conclusion some nine years later on September 15, 2006 in a country that likes to boast at every turn that it is an Etat de droit. On the same day, Judge Paul Lam Shang Leen gave his verdict on another case which received far more publicity in most newspapers which chose to ignore the Ah-Ling judgement. The newspapers reported at length the judge?s remarks in a case that pitted one politician against another and which revolved around the issue of whether one politician had paid his hotel bills for his 60th birthday party or whether the hotel gave him a freebie. There was no hint of violence, no signs of long lasting physical injuries or psychological trauma, and no children as helpless witnesses to aggravate the seriousness of the incident ; just the careless words of one politician against another. That ?incident? took place on July 14, 2001 and five comparatively short years later the judge found in favour of Jayen Cuttaree and ordered Rama Valayden to pay Rs 220 000 damages for defamation, ie nearly half of the damages awarded to a woman for suffering the grossest violation possible to her body and her soul?

The judge castigated Valayden for his ?bad faith? and ?total absence of any apology? and some newspapers reported faithfully and with ill disguised glee the judicial caning of the Attorney General over a case that evolved around the mundane and insufferably boring world of the reputation of politicians. I have read the full judgement of the Ah-Ling case, and I cannot see any condemnation by the judge of Ah-Ling?s ?bad faith? in trying to blame the victim for her injuries nor have I seen any judicial words regarding the ?absence of any apology? from the aggressor towards the victim or her children?

We regularly read with incredulity the reports of libel actions that dish out a fortune to politicians who have lost all public esteem but who somehow feel that they still enjoy a good reputation. And we shake our heads with shame and disgust when we see large numbers of victims whose lives have been destroyed by the violent, callous actions of others and who end up receiving nothing in compensation. Rape victims have to tolerate the daily affront of seeing their aggressor released on bail only a few days after indelibly leaving their vile stains on the souls of the victims; children raped by fathers or stepfathers have to cope with the added trauma of seeing the person responsible for stealing their youth back in the family home shortly after arrest; clear cases of murder are unaccountably reduced to manslaughter and murderers are released on bail even after confessing to the offence; people who are left physically handicapped as a result of violence from others will never receive a cent in compensation from either the aggressor or from our Etat de droit. But may God help you if you dare to criticize politicians as their reputation, despite our own opinions about them, apparently can only be repaired if you give them a large sum of money as punishment for describing them in public what almost everyone else calls them in private.

The justice game in Paradise Island appears to attach greater importance to the reputation of people who chose to be in the public limelight than to the life threatening, soul destroying assaults on the ordinary citizen. It seems to me that libel awards have been made ludicrously high by parliament for two reasons only: to cow the press into submission and to ensure that politicians, who are by and large the main initiators of libel actions, can continue to destroy this country without the fear of exposure. That is why our much publicized but hopeless fight against corruption has so far resulted in one miserable victory, and even then, the guilty party has yet to serve one single day in prison. One can only hope that those blankets have proved useful in warding off the harsh, cold winter nights!

The admirable principle of Fiat justitia, ruat caelum (Let Justice be done, though the Heavens may fall) advocated many years ago by Lord Mansfield seems to be rarely put into practice in Mauritius; instead, it appears to have been replaced by a banana republic mentality that allows gladiatorial games where the rich, the powerful, and the politicians deluding themselves they still have a reputation to maintain shamelessly distort the rules in order to obtain a Pyrrhic victory that inevitably makes the nation lose its moral compass.

R.A.J.