I write as a long-stand­ing sup­port­er of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, but al­so as one who be­lieves that loy­al­ty must nev­er re­quire si­lence. A po­lit­i­cal par­ty is not strength­ened when its mem­bers clap at every­thing. It is strength­ened when its mem­bers love it enough to tell the truth be­fore the wider pub­lic does.

Court of Ap­peal Judge Nolan Bereaux some­times got it wrong. In the Pi­ar­co I mat­ter, his hold­ing that a charge of ap­par­ent bias against Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc­Ni­colls was not sus­tain­able, lat­er sup­port­ed by the Court of Ap­peal, was held to be wrong by the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil (JCPC), since it was clear, even then, that Mc­Ni­colls was “hope­less­ly com­pro­mised.”

Ob­ser­va­tions post-Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress cel­e­bra­tion ral­ly and af­ter lis­ten­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter’s speech and gath­er­ing the re­spons­es from those present on the ground; fol­low­ers re­main hope­ful. Their be­lief is in the lead­er­ship of the PM; she has dis­tin­guished her­self as com­pas­sion­ate, car­ing and com­mit­ted to im­prov­ing the lives of all the peo­ple. She has strate­gi­cal­ly ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that to get it done, she needs more time. It may be dif­fi­cult for those whose strug­gle for ten years and now one year, to­tal­ly 11 years.

This is not just a pro­posed price in­crease; this is a bar­ri­er be­tween two parts of the same coun­try.

Court of Ap­peal Judge Nolan Bereaux re­tires this month from the Ju­di­cia­ry. Bereaux’s is not a house­hold name, per­haps not even among at­tor­neys who do not prac­tice at the Ap­peal Court. Yet, over the last 15 years, he, along with Pe­ter Ja­madar, pro­vid­ed ju­di­cial lead­er­ship, tak­ing the man­tle from Michael De La Bastide and Sat Shar­ma.

Should ac­count­abil­i­ty be se­lec­tive? In the case of Am­plia Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, the ques­tion must not just scratch the sur­face but must be thor­ough­ly an­swered. Via TTT on­line, I have heard the re­cent pro­nounce­ments by Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Bar­ry Padarath re­gard­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the ac­qui­si­tion of Am­plia Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and in­stant­ly this may sound re­as­sur­ing on the sur­face.