A group of activists is seeking to educate Bahamians on extradition and their rights as citizens during a town meeting on Wednesday at the British Colonial Hilton Hotel in downtown Nassau.
Calling the Extradition Act “insufficient”, Gilbert Morris, an economist who is the executive director of the Landfall Centre, said he intends to outline several anomalies in Bahamian law during the town meeting.
His centre is a research institute that focuses on finance trade and international affairs.
Dr. Morris made it clear that the plan is not to defend criminals.
He said on Monday that one of the problems faced in dealing with extradition requests is that those who want to see criminals caught usually brand persons who have questions about extraditions as being soft on crime. However, he said nothing could be further from the truth.
“That way of thinking is a more risky way of thinking in terms of catching criminals. To achieve what extradition is supposed to achieve you have to cross over some constitutional principles and our interest is how you get across those constitutional principles,” Dr. Morris explained.
The group is also concerned with citizenship issues and believes the constitutional rights of Bahamians facing extradition are being violated.
“The Bahamas is relatively young. It needs to come to terms with the idea of citizenship and what it means. It does not mean that we won’t cooperate with other countries, but they must meet a standard that is sufficient for us to disapply citizenship in the cases where they are requested,” Dr. Morris said
“When you look at the extradition cases, what we are asking ourselves is whether those persons requesting extradition have meet this threshold of citizenship so the government is not ‘willy nilly’ disapplying the profound privilege of citizenship to Bahamians for the sake of mere accusations in another country.”
Attorney Paul Moss will also address the town meeting on extradition. He said he plans to explain the extradition procedure.
“We want to go through that process to take you [from] when the request is made until someone is actually committed. The highlight will also be to show that under the present regime anyone can be extradited or a request can be given and that people who are being sought have no remedy to vindicate themselves,” Mr. Moss said.
“That is the difficulty we want to address because under this regime no Bahamian is safe and certainly we who are protectors and guardians of the constitution we speak up about these type of issues.”
Mr. Moss said as long as anomalies exist in the law they will be brought forth by concerned Bahamians like himself.
He claimed that since 1990, persons being sought for extradition by the United States did not actually commit crimes in America.
In that regard, Mr. Moss claimed that the United States may have bullied smaller nations into complying with its requests, which may be unconstitutional.
“Any extradition agreement requires The Bahamas to ensure that the requesting country has done all it can in its jurisdiction to acquire the evidence that is being requested,” Dr. Morris said.
“We have no indication that our governments have done what is necessary to ensure that the U.S. has tried to collect the evidence in its jurisdiction and come to The Bahamas as a last resort.”
The activists said they are not pushing for a constitutional review, but for a more expansive Extradition Act to better address present-day cases.
Other speakers at the town meeting will be attorneys Rawle Maynard and Maurice Glinton.
By: Bianca Symonette, The Bahama Journal
