I read with disgust the Editorial of the Searchlight newspaper published on April 25, 2023 entitled “Wicked?”. I could not believe how callous and unconscionable the author could be in a piece that clearly did nothing but give justification for the government’s oppression of public servants in this land.
Frankly, the editorial was an extension of the Prime Minister’s (PM) views; the same view being rubberstamped by related interests.
The suffering public servants view the government’s decision to appeal the mexcine mandate ruling as indeed wicked and this editor claims that such a view is “…narrow and frankly, disingenuous”. Yet, it’s the editorial’s presentation which betrays a narrow, callous, uncompassionate, oppressive and wicked, yes wicked, attitude towards fellow Vincentians. When this is the case from a newspaper in the Country, that is a dangerous state of affairs.
The editor repeats the PM’s claim that a single judge’s ruling should not be relied upon for legal clarity on the matter; that they need clarity on what powers governments have to make laws in an emergency. Since when does the fact that it was a single judge that made the ruling, render it legally unclear? Have we not had many rulings by a single judge in many matters in history? Should they all be reviewed? If one is suddenly a problem and you need 3, pray tell me, who invented the idea that one judge’s ruling does not suffice for clarity? Whose idea is that? Wait…wasn’t it a SINGLE judge who ruled that the government should get a stay of the execution of the order of Justice Henry? Self-justification brings all kind of crazy reasonings.
Furthermore, didn’t the Editor read pages 85-86 of Justice Henry’s ruling? It says: “No declaration is made that: -(a) section 43B of the Public Health Act insofar as it grants power to the Minister to declare a public health emergency, is inconsistent with section 17 of the Constitution or is null and void. (b) SR&O No. 38 of 2020 cited as the Public Health Emergency (Declaration) Notice 2020 made pursuant to the power of the Minister to declare a public health emergency under section 43B of the Act, is inconsistent with section 17 of the Constitution or is null and void.” Henry actually agreed that government could declare a public health emergency but ruled it had abused its powers in the manner of its operations.
The editorial blames public servants for their demise, by daring to say that they are denying themselves an opportunity to work by not taking up the government’s offer to REAPPLY. Listen, when employees, who were unjustly fired because they refused to take a dangerous and experimental product into their bodies, take initiative to seek new employment, this neither justifies the government’s social injustice against them nor paints it as if its actions were good. Furthermore, reapplying for a job from which you were fired based upon government’s illegal philosophy of resignation, is equal to saying that the government was just in its action. In the interest of social justice and fair dealings, one cannot do such a thing. This is affirmed in the fact that the High Court declared the legal breaches by the government unconstitutional and null and void. No newspaper editorial can change that reality.
Then comes the promise that if public servants reapply, it will not change their situation, whether the government wins the Appeal or not. Government’s loss at the High Court did not result in the Public Servants return to the classroom and all public servants know that, earlier, the PM had indicated his government’s willingness to go all the way to the Privy Council to vindicate his position. So, what back pay and other damages will the workers receive if the Appeal Court upholds Justice Henry’s ruling, as the editorial claims? The editorial is just talk that is a comfort to a fool.
To return to work without one’s back pay and damages for the illegality done against them, is to agree with the oppressor, with no real hope of justice, if the government could have its way. This is all about deceiving public servants into support of the petty tyrant’s arrogance and love to dominate people’s conscience, while he vindicates himself that he was never wrong.
Public servants are not denying themselves opportunity to work; the government fired them unjustly and extends the injustice by seeking an appeal of a judgment and stay of an order to compensate them. The judgment condemns government’s actions as unlawful, unconstitutional, procedurally improper, against natural justice and therefore null and void.
The editorial blames the conscientious victims and commends the oppressor, forgetting that in the first place, the oppressive government forced public servants to take an experimental and investigational product which we’ve known, since December 2020 (see the EUA issued by the FDA to Pfizer for example) (way before the mandate), could not stop transmission of the virus and, therefore, could not protect public health.
Where is the Editorial about the suffering public servants today, whose properties the banks threaten to take away, whose children cannot pay to return to university studies, whose livelihoods have been destroyed, not because they abandoned their jobs, but BECAUSE THEY CHOSE, IN CONSCIENCE, NOT TO TAKE AN EXPERIMENTAL SPIKE PROTEIN FILLED POISON INTO THEIR BODIES-GOD’S TEMPLE. Instead of this heartless editorial, the paper should write about the public servants who, pressured into taking the jab, on pain of loss of job, now regret they did not take job loss instead and save their lives. Why? Go and check the number who are constantly on sick leave, hypertensive and diabetic (developed after mexcination), with hearing and vision problems, blood clots, strokes, heart swelling (myocarditis), menstruation disorders (including heavy and irregular bleeding and passing clots), destruction of the bone marrow, requiring frequent blood transfusions, erectile dysfunction problems, sudden cancers, deaths and more!
Some may never learn until the trouble comes upon them and their families. Nevertheless, any bogus law or decree which tramples upon constitutional rights and freedoms is not good, and if it is not good, then it is bad and bad is WICKED! “Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!” Isa.10:1-2. “…but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness.” Pr. 11:5
Anesia O. Baptiste
For Thusian Institute for Religious Liberty Inc.