Presumed Guilty

With new proposed legislations of late, including Constitutional amendment, a strong feeling is gaining ground among thinking Mauritians that a sense of original guilt is being thrust upon every citizen. The proposed legal changes currently under discussion in Parliament convey clearly the message that we as a nation are guilty of having amassed unaccounted-for wealth. Further, each one of us has to prove in front of an Agency established in the Ministry of Good Governance and Financial Services that he is coming with clean hands, at the risk of seeing one’s property inscribed with a privilege in favour of the government initially, to be followed by forfeiture eventually if it falls in the category of unexplained wealth. By any standards, this is not a flattering image of Mauritius as a nation. It is turning on its head the sacrosanct principle of presumption of innocence all of us enjoy as enshrined in the Constitution.

Mauritius Times