Many may have heard the news that the United Kingdom took the government and control of Turks and Caicos Islands on August 14, 2009. Previously, Turks and Caicos was an autonomous Caribbean territory of the UK. The UK's presence in Turks and Caicos was reportedly due to a corrupt Premier, Michael Misick, who left office in March 2009 and was replaced by a duly elected new government that month.
When the UK took control of the Turks and Caicos government, it also rescinded the islands' autonomous constitution. Along with so doing, it made an alarming and almost unprecedented announcement: jury trials were no longer to be held.
In an update made to the UK parliament this month, Chris Bryant, the Labour Government and Foreign & Commonwealth Office Minister, announced, "The Order also suspends the constitutional right to trial by jury in the Turks and Caicos Islands ..."
British Turks and Caicos governor, Gordon Wetherell also declared, "The constitutional right to trial by jury is also suspended with immediate effect."
On the minds of many world citizens is the question, why the UK would rescind an accused citizen's right to a jury trial? Moreover, why is the UK forbidding Turks and Caicos citizens from sitting on a jury panel?
According to English common law, a jury trial is a fundamental civil liberty and it is every individual's right to be judged by a jury of peers.
How can the very inventors of jury trials unilaterally and capriciously terminate that right for 24,000 people in Turks and Caicos? But further, "WHY?" is the question.
It has been argued that in some extreme cases, as in Northern Island, the accused might not be judged fairly because of a tainted jury pool, but only as to the accused; certainly not the entire population. However, in the case of Turks and Caicos, the UK said the opposite; that the jury pool could not be trusted. All of the citizens in Turks and Caicos could be corrupted, the UK announced.
This theory by UK of universal corruption is utter rubbish. The people of Turks and Caicos are some of the most hospitable and sophisticated people in the world. Why are the citizens of Turks and Caicos being unfairly judged by UK? The answer is far more complicated than UK's explanation of weak-minded corruptible islanders.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Jimmy
Just out of interest, have you ever been to the Turks and Caicos?
Do you even know where it is?
2 - One man's opinion
Have you ever been out of Turks and Caicos or are you so narrow minded that you don't know that the world is watching? The UN, EU, grass roots organisations. We are all figuring this out, some more quickly than others. It will come out by me or by someone a lot more sophisticated than me. Sorry -- you will have to try to intimidate a lot of people now to silence them. I have TCI citizens lined up for days wanting to spill the beans.
3 - Jimmy
Is "Gillamo Williams" one of them?
4 - One man's opinion
"you will have to try to intimidate a lot of people now to silence them"
Yes, many people were intimidated by you and your crew, including the newly installed Premier, Williams. That was your question, neh?
5 - One man's opinion
Does everyone work for Galmo Williams now too? I thought everyone worked for Cem Kinay. How many people must be out there wanting to expose you? Keep coming with your theories. I would love to check them out.
6 - Jimmy
I just thought it was funny that an "investigative reporter" couldn't get Gilley's name right. I do like the idea that he's intimidated by me. I'll mention it next time I see him.
I know who you work for. Just make sure you get paid up front. Cem doesn't like paying his bills.
7 - One man's opinion
When you see Galmo ask him what he thinks of you testifying and publicly stating that he is: cut from the same cloth as Misick, he cannot be trusted, he is tainted, his name rymes with silly... and dozens of other innuendos. Please report back and let me know what he thinks of your scheme.
8 - One man's opinion
Let's assume satan is paying US$1 Million - just to be the "devil's advocate". Everything we've reported can be backed up with hard facts. Who is paying TCI Journal to spread lies? That's the bigger question. Who is benefitting from your lies. I know who is behind all of this, you have a mole Malcolm.
9 - Jimmy
You really have gone off the deep end now. I've never said anything like that about him. The things you make up are very strange.
$1m? Now that's funny. If you end up making fifty bucks from these people pretending to be a journalist I'll be surprised. You say you can back up what you say with facts, but when I ask you about this $500m you have no answer. You have no facts. You write what Kinay tells you One week you tell us what a successful project Dellis is, the next it's collapsed. You know nothing. You've never even been here.
10 - One man's opinion
That's not what Brook says
11 - Jimmy
Who's Brook?
12 - traxxs
Jimmy you seem to me very misguided in your thinking. What makes you think that I as a educated Turks and Caicos Islander, want another man in house running my affairs and scolding my children.
From the exchange above you seem to slip of the deep end when challenge and resort to name calling and inuendoes, that observations itself speaks volumes about your character, motives and agenda. Cant you debate the issues without being petty.
13 - Jimmy
I think it's hypocritical of Kinay to complain about anonymous bloggers and then to hire people like this to do exactly the same thing.
It's very simple. They day the islands vote for independence, the brits are gone. Until then, it's their responsibility.
14 - STM
I dunno, but something's not ringing true here.
There's certainly an agenda here, Jimmy. I can't quite work out yet exactly what it is because the frequency of the articles is just giving me the feeling that what you see on the surface might not be all there is.
A series of articles banged out one after the other devoted to the one subject to keep it out there ...
Luckily BC encourages a near-absolute right to free speech.
It's not for me to judge: Mr Burke, however, might simply be a passionate true believer in his cause.
If so, good on him - because what you see here is democracy at work. In which case, why not come out and tell us why there are so many new articles, suddenly, on the Turks and Caicos issue - which isn't new, BTW??
TCI Watch is an interesting site. Google it. Certainly Mr Burke's name is used in relation to TCI Watch on Twitter.
If TCI Watch it's Mr Burke's site (and I don't know that for certain), he claims to be an investigative reporter based in Los Angeles who also claims to be non-partisan and "HAS NO LINKS TO THE ISLAND(s)" - yes :) there's more than one - "AT ALL". The writing of some of the comments on BC reminds me of someone else who's been on here in the past who's actually from ... India (which on its own wouldn't be an issue; it's exactly the same as a person from the UK commenting on American politics).
But ...
And yeah, we know about the jury trial issue. It's the RIGHT to a jury trial that's been suspended. To be restored or further suspended in that two-year period as is seen fit and depending on the circumstances. The right is suspended but jury trials are not necessarily being denied in all cases (or even most cases), is my understanding. Even the US has bench trials in some situations.
I understood that it was a provision made to follow the English precedent (rembering of course that TCI is actually a self-governing BOT, not a sovereign entity) where most civil trials are conducted without a jury. Magistrates hear minor criminal cases without a jury but may act to commit for trial. Cases heard in the Crown Court will be heard with a jury, and virtually all criminal cases are heard with a jury.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong on that and how it might relate to TCI but I believe I'm not.
So why is the RIGHT (rather than the actuality) suspended in this case?
This is public information, but it's obvious anyway. I'll throw the coin down on the opposite side to the author, who seems to want this to be a "heads I win, tails you lose" argument.
It's because: So that in certain cases that might arise in relation to the quite serious allegations Mr Burke appears to be glossing over somewhat in his series of articles, evidence can be heard by judge alone ... because there's at least an expectation that the judiciary is a) independent b) well-versed in the law and c), like a Royal Commissioner, might also be able to act in a quasi-investigative fashion to find out facts that might otherwise be obscured or twisted by the smoke and mirrors tactics used by lawyers in our confrontational system of justice.
Independent is the key issue ... unlike some juries in some small countries (or some small counties even ... read Harper Lee's classic semi-autobiography in regard to how that works) which, even if they might start out independent, might not always end that way.
Juries don't always have to be paid off financially to; sometimes they can be intimidated as well, and intimidation can take many forms.
Threat of job loss, for instance.
So I would see the opposite viewpoint, even though I don't agree with suspending such a right normally: what the British are doing here is making sure that justice might not only be done, but might be seen to be done.
You might want to argue here that TCI has had its rights taken away, but I'd argue that the British have stepped in to make sure thopse rights ultimately are back to ALL the people in a fair and transparent fashion.
Let justice work its course before we rush to judgment.
15 - Michael
Every day there is more bad news from Turks and Caicos. It is just a relief that SOMEONE is pointing this out. Every day there is some nwe bad news - I went on vacation to Turks and Caicos with a scuba team and it was lux there. Everything was laid back and beautiful. What kind of crap is muddying up that place.
What is scary about letting the UK decide about who should get a jury is that this article says that it is not to protect the person on trial but that the people of Turks and Caicos cannot b trusted to serve a jury. This is typical UK greed for you.
They had their own scandals of corruption earlier this year. UK gave each member of parliament tax free and daily cash and nobody had to account for it, this was about $400 a day. Why is the UK deciding who needs help?
I am interested to find out if taking the right to a jury trial - if that language means giving up the constitutional right. STM seems angry but I am not sure why. You should never defend giving something up especially by the UK.
I am not sure why he is defending this.
I think the "right" to give up a jury trial does not mean that there might e some on a case by case basis. That is not a good spin Mr. Brit supporter. Giving up the "right" means that you had a constitutional right and now you don't, meaning that you have given up this right and this right has been taken away. Perhaps a lawyer can look this up in Black's Law of something.
It should never be the UK's call to take any democracy away from anyone. They have their own problems to worry about. Maybe another country has the moral authority to go and fix uk.
never give up democractic rights!!!!!!!!
16 - Jimmy
STM,
I think it's very clear that tciwatch is a front operation set up and funded by Kinay. It's clear that he advertised for bloggers over the summer (the advert is still online) since when these articles have started appearing. Tciwatch was set up by the same people and at the same time as turks journal, the site to which the oproperties site now redirects. I think it's pretty obvious what's going on here.
17 - Eirik Petersen
Norway is the number 1 place in the world to live. We did not gain this title by allowing anyone to pillage us or pull the wool over our eyes. We stood up for you commodity and resources and allowed our people to retain control of the government which provided our people with prosperity. Turks and Cacois is having the reverse problem. It has welcomed an opportunist nation to take instead of add anything to what they already enjoyed.
What a shame. Turks and Caicos was enjoying such promise of a booming tourist purse. Which is exactly why GB jumped the chance. GB further installed the G20 and orders attempting to take financial banking into the dark ages which is another resource for the Caribbean communities.
18 - One man's opinion
The Wikileaks publication also came out in the summer. The islands were also taken over in the summer. The new government had been overthrown in the summer. a British war vessel was waiting outside Turks and Caicos over the summer. Lots of events happened in the summer friend. But you can dissent with democracy seekers and rights activists by trying to discredit the purpose. You can take a stab at anything you wish. We both have that right then.
19 - Jimmy
So you're a democracy seeker and rights activist are you?
What democracy seeking and rights activity were you involved in before Kinay's want ad was published?
20 - traxxs
What a yawn Jimmy is Kinay hater i can see that but what else is he after.
21 - traxxs
I supposed Jimmy has always been on the wrong side of history. The British can't be here in the TCI forever; I wonder what he is going to do when they are force to leave in shame. Oh, I know he will still be a proud Brit. living in the TCI???
22 - traxxs
Michael
STM do not seem to understand the difference here. let me see if i can help him. Yes, in the UK in some extreme cases a judge alone may hear a case; where this is allowed the offences are clearly define. The constutional right to a jury in all other UK cases remain intact.
Now, with the suspension of the TCI constution, tyhe constutional right to a jury trial in the TCI was abolish outright. A person charge with a crime (no matter the circumstances or type)no longer have a right to elect a jury trial as was the case before the constitution was suspended. The law of the land now is that a judge hearing a matter may if he/she see fit give an acuse an oppurtunity to elect a jury trial in an appropiate case. This is a huge difference from what happens in England, the USA and many other civilise country.
The truth is that if the Brits thought they had the evidence to suceed against the Misick government they would not be going to such extreme.
23 - Jimmy
Nonsense. The law has not been changed at all. They simply now have the power to change it. Nothing has been done yet.
During the Commission it was Misick's lawyer who argued that he couldn't get a fair trial because the people would be biased against him because of the information that had come out. He was hoping of course that the Commission would decide there should be no trials at all.
Be careful what you wish for.
24 - Jimmy
ps Burke/OMO will be pleased to know that none of this applies to his boss, who skipped town some time ago. He is an Austrian citizen and cannot be extradited under Austrian law.
25 - One man's opinion
If he skipped and I am an employee, then why am I still here? He went into receivership last week, the man is flattened. I confirmed with his staff. I worked in South Africa prior to TCI. I have been conveniently gagged there for telling the truth. I'm a pain in the ass, aren't I? How's your boss enjoying the African culture? I can give him some tips on some hot spots.