Former TCI leader’s latest challenge to trial fails
Michael Misick, former premier of the Turks and Caicos Islands
(CNS): Michael Misick, the former leader of the Turks and Caicos Islands who is fighting for a jury trial in the case against him relating to corruption charges, has lost another courtroom battle. The TCI chief justice ruled last week that Misick’s legal team’s arguments were “frivolous and vexatious” because they had all been heard before, making it likely the local politician will be denied the right to have a jury decide his fate and the case will be in the hands of a judge.
Misick, who was the leader of the Progressive Nationalist Party (PNP), and a number of businessmen and politicians face a catalogue of charges in relation to a corruption investigation in TCI that has been ongoing for the last six years. The probe began after a report by Sir Robin Auld found systemic corruption in the country and has continued since. The UK imposed British rule in 2009 until the general election in 2012, when the PNP took office again but this time under the premiership of Rufus Ewing.
In a formal statement released to the press on Friday, Misick’s team said they disagreed with the judge’s decision, claiming this was the first time they had challenged the constitutionality of the way the court was established to try the former premier. However, the decision would make any further appeal difficult and the lawyers appeared resigned to a judge alone trial.
Category: Caribbean, Courts, Crime, World News
Jury trials cannot work in such small communities. Time they stopped and judges should be given protection and regularly rotated.
Agreed. Over the years there have been people threatened with harm (at best) who won’t play the local game. If they want a jury then try them in England where you can at least form a jury where the accused mother isn’t sitting in the front row.
All he has to do is go to Canada and be ordained a lay preacher, there is precedent for that.
I’ve spent 15 years in the TCI. What the tribal nature of the local community has allowed to happen is criminal. The biggest losers have been themselves and yet many still cannot/will not acknowledge it. When expats have to donate money to buy school supplies while these characters scam hundreds of millions and put their country back at least a generation-so sad. Hopefully the trials will clearly show all stakeholders what has transpired including, at best, no oversight by the Brits and, at worst, collusion. The light must be shone before the country can acknowledge, heal and move forward hopefully having learned something. Hers hoping.
No oversight was because they didn’t and don’t want to be the colonial masters they once were, however that changed when Misick did his thing, bottom line, still want that Union Jack in the corner then get real on finance. Frankly I still think it’s too light touch now. Here in Cayman money is frittered and filtered like it someone’s personal pay chest. It is used for political gain rather than what is right for Cayman. And it just goes on…
When Misick and his pals start to sing on the stand it will be incredible what comes out of the cesspool. They won’t go quietly unless the Brits slap them on the hand. Will the Brits also allow the tentacles of so called justice to reach over the pond to their venerated House of Lords? This will be an interesting study of damage control while making it appear that justice has been served. Tens of thousands of pages of evidence! It would make a great movie. Oh yea-Mike did like Hollywood.
I agree with most of the comments posted – but what is the difference between TCI and Cayman? We behave exactly the same.
Private sector and ” expats” ( I don’t like the word), fund our Government programmed annually.
1. Derek Baines running for Hospice Care.
2. Financial Services companies buying ambulances and other equipment for the Hospital.
3. Cancer Society and Humane Society holding annual fundraisers,
4. Rotary and Lions …fundraisers,
5. Schools with their Annual Fundraisers,
6. Sports Organizstions … begging outside Grocery Stores ( it is organized begging)
7. NCVO annual fundraiser and
the List goes on and on and on…
SO where is our $700 million dollars going? Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones – Cayman Islands is a mess!!!
6:46 I don’t think it was lack of oversight by the Brits but too many vested interests, including one very well known Tory party backer, interfering with the process.
Those foaming at the mouth in the anti Brit talk shows wanting independence….be very careful what you wish for. An unregulated corrupt politician will destroy Cayman overnight.
7:33 And exactly what difference will that make to what we have now? These islands are already run on a friends/family/in-laws/fellow church goers/those with money/those with leverage and what have you basis. Even the democratic process is a joke – it just recycles the same old XXXX every four years.
So true, 7:33. So why is a former Cabinet Secretary-supposedly the leading civil servant in the Cayman Islands (though most people were very disappointed in his non performance) -making anti-British comments on his talk show on Radio Cayman….to boost his electoral chances next time around?
The TCI Chief Justice is our own former Judge Margaret Ramsey- Hale. Misek will get a fair trial…of that I am certain.
I thought the purpose of his spate of applications is to avoid the risk of a fair trial.
Obviously he thinks TCI juries will be like Cayman juries. Enough supporters on any jury to blindly guarantee an acquittal of certain politicians.
Well they are. Just search the case of Alden ‘Smokey’ Smith, they were dancing in the streets
True enough. In that case the first 2 juries were dismissed as they were being bought drinks by his cousin and the third was mackled together from residents on his home island. When the ‘Not Guilty’ verdict was given the judge said “well a country gets the justice it deserves”. Smokey’s immediate response to the court was “Not justice, just us”
And it is terrible when CARICOM tries to seek reparations for slavery, when many of the local problems have been caused by the local population viewing the criminal or the corrupt as Robin Hood-like heroes. Lynden Pindling did more to cause the horror that is Nassau than any other human being, but many still see him as a hero. It has gone on many times before and since.
Missick reminds me of another leader of a territory, packing up the jury with his band of associates. i guess freedom at any cost.
Having lived in TCI I heard Attorneys and regular citizens say over and over “we don’t tell on our people”. In other words, they would never give evidence against their own people. Hence the corruption they reap has been because of the corruption they sowed.