Justice Cannot Be a Slogan for the Public and an Inconvenience for the Powerful

 Justice Cannot Be a Slogan for the Public and an Inconvenience for the Powerful

OPINION BY : Hem Kumar November 2026

The word at issue is accountability.

Not awareness. Not publicity. Not another declaration that violence is unacceptable. Accountability: the willingness to uphold a standard when doing so becomes politically uncomfortable.

Political Endorsement Is a Choice

Consider Nigel Dharamlall.

In 2023, the then minister faced allegations of rape involving a teenage schoolgirl. He denied the allegations. The complaint was subsequently withdrawn, and the Director of Public Prosecutions advised that no charges should follow. In July 2025, Dharamlall appeared on the PPP/C’s national candidates list. These are separate facts, and an honest discussion must preserve the distinction between them.

An allegation is not a conviction. The absence of a prosecution must not be misrepresented as proof of guilt. But neither does it settle every question about the judgment of a political party that subsequently chooses to endorse the person concerned.

A party’s candidates list is not a court judgment. It is an expression of political confidence.

No court compelled the PPP/C to include Dharamlall. His inclusion was a political choice. The legitimate question, therefore, is not whether party leaders should have substituted themselves for a judge. It is what standards they applied, what explanation they owe the public, and how their decision fits the moral authority they claim when speaking about survivor protection and impunity.

You cannot demand that citizens take your principles seriously while treating questions about your party’s application of those principles as an inconvenience.

Concern Must Become an Effective Safeguard

The allegations against Deputy Commissioner Fizal Karimbaksh present another test.

A female police officer has accused him of rape and threatening behavior. Those allegations remain unproven. Reporting has also documented the controversy surrounding efforts to place him on leave and the dispute over the authority to do so.

To your credit, Minister, you publicly called for him to go on leave to facilitate the investigation. That intervention deserves acknowledgment. But it also makes the institutional question impossible to avoid: when the minister responsible for survivor protection identifies a necessary safeguard, can the state implement it clearly and effectively? Or must the public watch a dispute over who has the power to act?

An expression of concern is not itself a safeguard. A statement does not resolve a chain-of-command problem. And a declaration that an investigation must proceed does not, by itself, establish public confidence in its independence.

This is not a demand for punishment before a finding of guilt. It is a demand for a credible process—one that protects the complainant, respects the accused’s rights and does not leave the public guessing about whether institutional authority can be exercised when a senior officer is involved.

Your own position recognizes that concern. The question is whether the machinery of government can give practical effect to it.

And When There Is a Conviction?

Then there is Daniel Seeram.

Here, Minister, the discussion moves beyond an allegation awaiting determination. Seeram was convicted of assaulting his former wife, Farzana Hamid. On November 2, 2026, the former Region Four chairman and National Border Patrol Coordinator received a 13-month prison sentence, suspended for 13 months. He was not required to serve that prison term immediately.

This case reached the very stage your post identifies as part of accountability: sentencing.

What, then, is your response?

A suspended sentence is not an acquittal. Nor does criticism of a sentence establish that the magistrate acted improperly. Judicial independence matters. Ministers should not dictate findings or instruct courts on the punishment to impose.

But judicial independence does not require political silence about the public-policy questions a sentence raises.

The court reportedly considered Seeram’s prospects for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation is a legitimate concern. Citizens are nevertheless entitled to ask how the outcome serves deterrence, how the survivor’s interests were addressed, and what a domestic-abuse conviction should mean for someone entrusted with public responsibility.

Those questions do not disappear because the criminal proceedings have reached an outcome. They become more concrete.

The government does not need to retry the case to explain its own standards for public office.

What Comfort Does Silence Offer?

And where, in this discussion, are the voices of the women who sit in Cabinet and help shape the country’s laws?

Their duty does not arise simply because they are women. Every minister, male or female, owes the public consistency. Responsibility for confronting violence must not be assigned to women alone while their male colleagues escape scrutiny.

But women in public office who speak about empowerment and survivor protection should understand the particular force of this question: what refuge, reassurance or comfort does silence offer a victim looking to the state for evidence that her suffering matters?

If you have addressed this sentence publicly, put that response plainly before the country. If you have not, explain how silence advances the principles your campaign proclaims.

Women do not need public officials to promise that every prosecution will succeed or every sentence will satisfy public opinion. They need officials willing to explain difficult outcomes, defend consistent standards and confront uncomfortable questions without retreating into slogans.

Where is the equity in a justice campaign if its most difficult tests are left unanswered?

The Seeram case alone does not prove that every similarly situated offender would have received a different sentence. That comparison requires evidence. But the public does not need to establish an entire pattern of unequal sentencing before asking a government what consequences it considers appropriate when a public official is convicted of domestic abuse.

That is a question of governance as well as criminal justice.

Services Cannot Substitute for Political Credibility

Your post points to education, awareness, psychosocial support, shelter and the survivor advocate program. Those services matter. They should not be dismissed merely because the government’s political choices deserve criticism.

But they answer a different question.

A shelter can provide safety. Counselling can provide support. An advocate can help a survivor navigate a frightening process. None of those services explains a party’s candidate-selection decision, resolves a dispute about a senior officer’s continued exercise of authority, or establishes what standards the government requires after a public official’s conviction.

The people delivering those services should not be made to carry the burden of defending political decisions they did not make.

A ministry can conduct a thousand awareness exercises and still face a crisis of credibility if the administration’s conduct appears inconsistent with its message. The measure is not how often the government says violence is unacceptable. It is how clearly that principle governs the choices within its control.

Apply the Standard You Announced

Minister, no one should ask you to pronounce an accused person guilty, direct a prosecutor or dictate a magistrate’s sentence. The demand is both narrower and more exacting.

Explain the standards governing political endorsement. Insist on credible safeguards when senior officials face serious allegations. State what a domestic-abuse conviction means for public responsibility. And address judicial outcomes as matters of policy without pretending that respect for the courts forbids public discussion.

The presumption of innocence must be respected. So must the distinction between an allegation and a conviction. So must the public’s right to scrutinize those who govern.

You said every stage must deliver. That includes the stage at which political leaders decide whether their declared principles will govern their own conduct.

“End impunity” is not a certificate the government can award itself. It is a promise citizens are entitled to test.

And a government that tells survivors to find their voices must be prepared to use its own—especially when the subject is someone powerful.

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