Greg Christie Investigator or Inquisitor?
IF zeal was an item on a fast-food menu chart, Contractor General Greg Christie would weigh in at around 500 pounds.
His work sets off discussion among the man and woman at street level to the point where a few weeks ago one of my taxi driver friends suggested, “A dat deh man deh shoulda prime minister.” Focused on his mission like none other before him, he has recently earned the ire of some of those making up ‘genteel’ society; that is, those who we assume have a premium on information and intelligence.
After he had submitted his report of investigation into a contract awarded to Mr Aubyn Hill by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and made recommendations that criminal charges be laid against the agriculture minister himself and other senior personnel attached to the ministry, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) issued findings which went against the conclusions of the contractor general.
That would have been the end of the matter had Mr Christie not ‘written another report’ seemingly pouring cold water on the DPP’s legal position on the matter and reiterating his initial findings. Was Mr Christie saying that the DPP had erred? Did he want the DPP to reopen the file, not necessarily to take another look at the sequence of his investigations and findings but moreso to agree with his findings?
The questions I asked myself were, just as how his office displays a healthy excess of zeal in his work, does he believe that the DPP falls off the chart in the exact opposite direction? Just as how he wants to be respected — and he should be for his fine body of work — does he not believe that Miss Paula Llewellyn, the DPP, is not also seeking to be respected for her work? Has he found major flaws in her work, not just in the specific matter but broadly, enough to make him somewhat suspicious of her findings in a wide array of investigations?
Last week I sent off a few questions to the contractor general and as usual, he was gracious and very prompt in his response.
Some are carried below.
Wignall: Was there an individual who encouraged you to come back home?
Christie: “No one in particular. I, myself, nurtured the desire to return home and to identify, if possible, a suitable employment opportunity in Jamaica which I could give back to my country. That desire was communicated by me to several persons and entities locally as the Kaiser Aluminum Chapter 11 Bankruptcy process began coming to a close in 2004 (as well as after). At the time, I had been employed to Kaiser for over 12 years and was then one of the lead Kaiser team members who was responsible for divesting Kaiser’s significant commodities business assets in the United States, Jamaica and Ghana, in consequence of Kaiser’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
“I returned to Jamaica in early November 2005 in preparation of my formal assumption of the position of contractor general, effective December 1, 2005. This position was formally offered to me by the then governor general of Jamaica, His Excellency the Most Hon Sir Howard Cooke.
“My 13-year sojourn with Kaiser Aluminum came to an end effective November 2004 after Kaiser, as a part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring plan, disbanded its Global Commodities Business Unit. The unit was disbanded after Kaiser had successfully divested a substantial portion of the assets which were previously operated and/or administered by the unit.
“The referenced assets included all of Kaiser Aluminum’s smelters in the USA and Ghana, its alumina refinery in Louisiana and its controlling interests in the local Alpart Alumina refinery and Kaiser Jamaica Bauxite operations. At the time of the unit’s closure, I was its vice president and assistant general counsel.
“You might also wish to note that for approximately eight to 10 weeks in 2005, between July and September, I was engaged as a legal and management consultant with Air Jamaica. I was offered the position by the airline’s then Executive Chairman Dr Vin Lawrence, after I had previously made a formal application to Air Jamaica, among other local entities in Jamaica’s private and public sectors, for full-time employment.
“My assignment at Air Jamaica was to develop an Aircraft Lease Executive Management Information System for the airline’s aircraft inventory — an assignment which I successfully completed. In conducting the assignment, I worked very closely with Air Jamaica’s then corporate secretary and legal counsel, among other senior executives, whilst reporting directly to Dr Lawrence.
“As you will note, one of the disciplines in which I hold a Master’s degree in Law from the University of London is Aviation Law. I was also the person who, commencing, I believe in 1981/1982, co-wrote, directed and taught the curriculum for the UWI’s first LLM Air Law Programme.”
Wignall: Your recent release has triggered a view which indicates that you disagree with the ruling of the DPP. Nothing wrong with that. But to launch a broadside against the ruling and suggest that the subjects of your investigations would, in other circumstances, be in prison, is to me, highly irresponsible. Without rehashing all that was set out in your release, how do you respond to that irresponsible bit?
Christie: “Quite to the contrary, the OCG has not launched a ‘broadside’ against the DPP’s ruling. What the OCG’s release has done is to simply clarify, in the public sphere, some of the key considerations which informed the OCG’s finding that there was evidence which warranted its referral of the subject matter to the ODPP. As you should by now be aware, the OCG, as a quasi-judicial authority, is empowered under the law to make such a finding and must be able to credibly substantiate the bases for any of the positions which it has taken.
“What the ODPP does once it receives such a referral from the OCG is an entirely different matter and one which resides solely within the lawful discretion and purview of the ODPP. The OCG has made it absolutely clear that it has not attempted, in any way, to direct the ODPP.
“Further, and as has been clearly outlined in the referenced OCG media release, there were certain erroneous and false statements which had been placed in the public domain regarding the circumstances which impacted the OCG’s findings in its investigation.
“The OCG continues to believe that if any of these issues were left un-clarified, un-remedied or unaddressed, they could have potentially caused irreparable injury to not just the integrity of the OCG’s referrals in the instant matter, but also irreparable damage to the institutional integrity of the OCG itself.
“Regarding the matter which you have characterised as ‘irresponsible’, the OCG’s statement on the matter reads verbatim as follows:
‘It is not unlikely that, in the foregoing circumstances, in certain other jurisdictions, all three (3) men could have easily found themselves in prison for their actions or, at a minimum, be compelled to defend their conduct, before a Criminal Court of Law, for admittedly lying in sworn testimony or under ‘oath’ to a Quasi-Judicial State Authority.’
“While we fully respect your opinion, with the greatest of respect, we do not see what is ‘irresponsible’ about the statement which we have made. We have simply stated what is, in the considered opinion of the OCG, a fact.”
Wignall: Do you believe that in your latest release (MOAF-Hill) you may have brought the OCG close to losing its reputation?
Christie: “Absolutely not! Quite to the contrary, had we not acted as we did, we would have, by omission, placed the institutional integrity and reputation of the OCG at severe risk, having regard, in particular, to the material misrepresentations of fact which were placed in the public sphere which, had they not been corrected, would have called into question the credibility of the OCG’s findings in the subject investigation.
“May I respectfully ask you this, Mr Wignall? How, as an independent quasi-judicial anti-corruption commission of the Parliament of Jamaica, could the OCG possibly lose or place its reputation at risk by insisting upon the search for the truth, or by ensuring that those whose interests it serves — namely the taxpayers and people of Jamaica — are advised of the facts as the OCG knows them? Would you or could you possibly have it any other way?
“I trust that I have satisfactorily answered all of your questions.”
Without the benefit of a course of study in the finer points of law, in immersing myself between two well-respected legal minds — Greg Christie and Paula Llewellwn — I am accepting that I am way out of my league. Legal findings are supposed to be based purely on facts, not on the specific biases of the investigators. That said, the language of law, especially that of learned trial judges, is oftentimes confusing to the brightest of us.
The main question which begs itself and indeed reveals the multi-sided conclusions from a tribunal of judges as in, say, the US Supreme Court on a single matter is, how did Greg Christie, a trained legal mind, and Paula Llewellyn, a trained legal mind, arrive at conclusions 180 degrees apart on a single issue?
Are law findings more like the luck of the draw, like the lotto where, say, a panel of judges, like the US Supreme Court, can arrive at a 5-4 scorecard and that is deemed as fair? Is there no absolute finding?
In the sequential rolling out of events in the investigations over the Hill contract one would have thought that once the OCG does its investigations and issues a report in which it recommends criminal charges, the ODPP would have the final say in the matter. The ODPP would either have accepted (in full or part) the OCG findings or reject them.
In an acceptance that society comprises many layers and support systems which often operate laterally, one would have thought that Mr Christie, as a responsible member of the Jamaican society, would be one of the first to buy into the legal system and recognise that the buck stops with the ODPP.
Has he identified a ‘blatant disregard for his findings’ by the ODPP? And if he has, should it not follow that a charge of incompetence should be levelled at the DPP? On the other hand, if he has not, should he not simply accept that the matter has ended?
It is not altogether unknown for bright people to be firm believers in themselves and in what they do. Christie was the Government National Law Scholar for 1974, and in 1977 he was named the UWI Post-Graduate Law Scholar. His academic and professional achievements are very impressive.
People like that tend not to accept any hint of what could be considered a ‘failing’ on their part or the fact that infallibility is the sole purview of those who the highly religious define as gods. On terra firma, we are all fallible human beings.
To me, with no training in law, Christie has erred, not so much in his initial report of investigations but in his attempting to overturn the findings of the DPP when he has no such powers. And he, being the bright and competent man that he is, must recognise that once he begins to question the DPP’s findings on his investigations when they go against what he expected, he will introduce a precedent that will have no end.
The only sure route for that is disorder, and this society already has its fill of that. If he believes that his office needs more teeth, and he has said so, then what he ought to do is actively lobby for that. Civil society will support him.
If Mr Christie is a student of history, as he must be, he will know that the past is littered with men who imagined that they were lawmakers but segued into despots because of a fervent belief that the only ‘right’ was the one endorsed by them.
I am certainly not accusing Mr Christie of being a borderline despot, but at times zeal can be misdirected.
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