By Lesroy W. Williams Observer Reporter
(Basseterre, St. Kitts) – Mr. Loris James, a Kittitian, who now resides in the United States of America, and who recently won a case against the Government in the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court over land that was deprived from him without compensation, said that patronage doesn’t build a society. “Patronage doesn’t help a society, doesn’t build a country. Patronage is the most humiliating thing that one can ever subscribe themselves to and it is also bad for the officials who encourage it because it is a form of mental slavery,” Mr. James said. The St. Kitts-Nevis Government has to compensate Mr. James in excess of EC$6.9 million after the court ruled that he should have been adequately compensated for lands that he had already entered into a purchasing agreement to buy at West Farm. The government wanted to pay Mr. James the agricultural price for the land instead of the market price based on a willing seller and a willing buyer. The Court of Appeal struck down the 1969 Amendments made to the original Land Acquisition Act that prescribe the agricultural basis as the rule for payment and ruled 21 years later that the price should be the market price. “If you think about it (patronage), you can’t do anything until someone tells you move or go and so whatever bargain that you have is subject to the whims and fancy of somebody else,” Mr. James said. “The reason why St. Kitts became a sovereign state is to get a Constitution that was fair and protected certain individual rights for everyone.” “The Constitution is the one yardstick to measure everyone and if elected officials don’t respect the Constitution that gives them the very legitimacy to be there and to pass the law, how could the public have any respect for them?” he said. “No elected official should ever be allowed to abuse the use of Parliamentary power without impunity,” he said. Mr. James said that his Constitutional rights were violated and that is why he took the government to court. “One has to respect the Constitution and be mindful not to tread on anything whatsoever that is enshrined in this Constitution,” Mr. James said. “Unless you are willing to stand up for those fundamental rights and fight for them no matter what price it is, the society will never improve, you will never see the promise that you hope for and for that reason I felt that people must not be afraid of fighting for what they think was their fundamental right in their own society. Mr. James said that people in society should familiarize themselves with the sections in the Constitution that deal with their fundamental rights as citizens so that they will not be trampled upon. He said that government must be careful in how they wield the sword. “The sword can be much sharper when you are on the outside than when you are on the inside. If you use it the wrong way and you get out, it can be much worse for you,” Mr. James said.
