Whenever I hear people argue, I wonder. You might wonder what I wonder, but I will tell you. I wonder that we wring our emotions out from our guts, and provide ‘moral and ethical’ values to ‘prove’ our arguments, when all along, our arguments can be won/lost through intelligent reasoning.
In other words, I wonder why we let ourselves become emotionally embroiled to the point where we lose our reasoning.
One of the things I like, that although we can argue the law passionately, the law itself is quite a dispassionate thing. That is, leaving emotions and prejudices aside, the law is still our best bet to solve our problems.
Funny too, that Sun Tzu even argued war from a dispassionate point of view.
When I saw this story in the Guardian, I was immediately struck by how passionate the wife is, about her family life, her business, etc would ‘suffer’ if her husband is deported.
What immediately leapt out at me though was this:
Sodiq arrived in Trinidad in October 2004. He was intransit [sic]and on his way to Grenada. He was allowed to stay 24 hours in Trinidad. He overstayed his time, travelled to Tobago and decided to stay.
So… he was in transit and allowed to stay 24 hours. Then he decides to overstay that initial 24 hours, moved to Tobago and got married some months/years later.
You know what? His family life, his employment, his income/expenditure etc has no value or place in contemplation here.
From the moment he knowingly crossed 24 hours, i.e. 24 hours and 1 minute, he was guilty of breaking the law. Anything else after is irrelevant.
Therefore, rather than offer a stay of his deportation, the magistrate ought to be escorting said criminal to the plane.
