Carmona to ICC: Do the right thing

It is a fortifying feature of justice, President Anthony Carmona has said, when courts act on “evidence and evidence alone,” and not passion, public perception, opinion or pressure.

Carmona, the feature speaker at the ceremonial opening of the Judicial Year at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands on Thursday, emphasised that the court of public opinion is not a court of law. Carmona was scheduled to be a judge on the ICC, but just before taking up the post, he was chosen to be TT’s Head of State.

“The court of public opinion may be a social barometer that tests the tenacity of a court’s judgment but it does not represent the law,” he said. Adjudication falls to judges, who have been elected as persons of integrity, independence and impartiality.

The world today is in need of transformative leadership, governance and equality of treatment, he said, and the ICC should be that beacon, a bearer of good news to all– those who are victims of injustice at the hands self-serving, self-centered leaders, who cling to the clutches of power, by trampling on human rights. “There is no peace without development, and no development without peace.There is no peace without justice, and no justice without peace,” he said.

In all things we do, Carmona said, we do the right thing, because it is the right thing to do.