EDITORIAL - A rush to judgement?

“It is wiser to find out than to suppose.” – Mark Twain

One of the cardinal principles of natural justice is the notion that a decision maker should always hear the other side before arriving at a final determination of a dispute. Lawyers would be familiar with this principle in its Latin form “Audi alteram partem”. Its application also reflects the mutual trust and confidence that ought to reside in any relationship between two parties, whether employer and employee, husband and wife or government and the governed.

In sum, it amounts to the self-evident proposition that no one should be condemned unheard, and one corollary is that there should be the conduct of a fair investigation of the facts. It finds place in our Employment Rights Act 2012 dealing with the dismissal of an employee, and in our statute on administrative justice governing the relation between the citizen and the state.

In at least one instance this week we have observed the scenario of a decision being taken by officialdom without reference to further investigation, or even giving an audience to an alternative viewpoint.

This was located in the news that Barbados, admittedly among some other regional jurisdictions, had banned the sale of corned beef and other meat products from Brazil. Thus was in the wake of reports from that country that police there had arrested a number of people, including employees of some meat processing factories for corruption in accepting bribes to allow rotted meat to pass inspection as fit for human consumption.

Despite the relevant Minister acknowledging that investigations were incomplete, the ban nevertheless went into immediate effect and the local print media were able to display photographs of empty supermarket shelves.

While we of course acknowledge that state officials should take no undue risk with the health of its citizens, it would appear that this decision was taken without reference to either the Brazilian authorities or those local suppliers who would have invested money in the acquisition of stocks for local consumption.

For its part, the Brazilians have iterated that their health checks and standards are rigorous, especially in regard to food for export, claiming that in 2016, 853 000 shipments of food products of animal origin were exported from Brazil and of these, only 184 shipments were deemed non-compliant by the importers, mainly because of inadequate paperwork or improper labelling.

Some pain has also been caused to local importers by this snap decision. Bewailing a substantial loss of income even before the products had been tested for compliance with local quality standards, one supplier described the ban as “too hasty”. It is said that comparisons are odious, but the action taken here is in stark contrast to that displayed in regards to the decriminalisation of marijuana.

The proponents of this measure might well feel aggrieved that in that context the local authorities are seemingly not persuaded by the legislative action of some of their counterparts in certain US states and rather seek to delay their decision by reference to calls for further investigatory research and to pay heed to the volume of dissenting voices.

However, in the instant case, a single news report, most likely of US origin, of arrests for corruption in one state of one of the largest and most populous countries in the world suffices to warrant a prohibition on the sales of all meat products from that nation.

It is, in our view, restrictive of legitimate trade to embargo the sale of corned beef at this time. It is to be hoped that this knee-jerk reaction is not informed by an absence of effective testing facilities locally, and that in our efforts to be fair to all concerned that we should observe that cardinal rule of natural justice referred to earlier and not condemn anyone unheard.