Polls show most Jamaicans think Golding got what he deserved

MOST JAMAICANS seem to approve of the manner in which attorneys-at-law K.D. Knight and Patrick Atkinson treated Prime Minister Bruce Golding while he was on the witness stand during the Manatt-Dudus commission of enquiry.

The two attorneys – characterised by many persons and groups, including the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), as rude – represented the interest of the People’s National Party (PNP) at the enquiry.

According to a recently conducted Bill Johnson poll, 42 per cent of respondents said Golding got the treatment he deserved from the two lawyers.

At the same time, 35 per cent of the respondents said the attorneys were rude to the prime minister. The remaining 23 per cent said they did not know.

The survey, which has a margin of error of plus or minus four per cent, was conducted on May 28 and 29 and June 4 and 5, 2011. Some 1,008 Jamaicans islandwide were sampled.

The Emil George-chaired commission, in its report to the governor general, said “the conduct of some counsel at the enquiry was discourteous and below the standard of decorum one expects from members of the Bar”.

The report, however, did not single out any attorney even though it referenced a statement made by Knight during one of the sittings.

“Some counsel were aggressive and rude. They behaved outrageously to some of the witnesses and some were even rude to the commissioners,” the report stated.

Golding and Knight locked horns during the commission and on one occasion the prime minister said: “This is the only forum where I have to tolerate this rudeness from Mr Knight.”

For his part, Knight consistently suggested to Golding that he was being deceptive. He also said the prime minister was a “pathologically mendacious person”.

“You have a pathological condition when it comes to telling the truth, and I am suggesting to you that you have misled, you have conspired and you have deceived the Parliament, the people of this country and the enquiry, this commission and the diaspora and every Jamaican and that you, Mr Prime Minister, should pack your bags and go,” Knight said while wrapping up his cross-examination of Golding.

Knight, during the enquiry, suggested that the prime minister had “deceived” the public in his answers regarding the hiring of the United States-based law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.

The attorney also said Golding was being deceptive when he said his reference to Liguanea in his “constitutional rights do not begin at Liguanea” speech in Parliament was not in reference to the US Embassy but rather a line of class demarcation.

Tempers flared during those exchanges and commission Chairman Emil George broke the proceedings, saying it was necessary to cool off.

The prime minister, who described the approach of Knight as impertinent, on one of the many occasions when he refused to answer a question from the attorney said: “How yuh so hard of hearing? I am not going to answer that question.”

Atkinson was not to be left out. On one occasion he hurled a barb at Golding’s lawyer, Hugh Small.

“Go and buy a tie!” Atkinson snapped as Small tried to interrupt his cross-examination.

Copyright the Jamaica Gleaner