Rights, custody and the law

Dear Editor,

I am moved to pen this note in the face of the recent discussions in the ‘Nzinga King debate’.

For professional reasons I wish not to comment on the ruling of the Office of the Director of Prosecutions. However, I wish to serve a timely reminder of the history of inmates under the English common law traditions.

I garnered a little knowledge about the historical journey of prison while at Pace Law School in New York, USA. One of my professors, Michael Muslin, is one of the leading prison rights lawyers in New York. At the height of the English colonial era a prisoner was considered civilly dead and even incompetent to even testify in court. This was a feature of the formative year of the English common law system. Under the English common law system a prisoner was prohibited from testifying in court because he was considered self-interested and biased purely on the basis of being a prisoner. In the colonial era in the USA, prisoners were condemned to the extent where they were denied the right to marry. This, again, was inherited from the English common system.

There is also a link between between slavery and prisons through the history of the English common law. Some of the prisons in Jamaica were used to host slaves. Incidentally, the 13th Amendment in the Constitution of the United States of America prohibits slavery except for a person convicted of a crime.

Today we see people being condemned and denied jobs, serving increased sentences and other repercussions because they were convicted.

Interestingly, Nzinga’s event unfolded while she was in custody.