Is there any more justice in the country?

The BANI case related trial took place, in spite of opposition protests denouncing another manipulation of justice to political ends. The defense’s will to postpone the trial was ignored. Both facts are officially not supposed to be linked, although the trial took place right after Professor Raymond Ranjeva’s renewed advocacy of the need for a new transition. A worse prospect for the ruling power would be a potential presidential candidacy from the former judge of the International Tribunal.

“They tried to link Pr Ranjeva to the BANI scandal but it was not possible,” declared one of his supporters. The professor’s lawyer argues that, “the officers produced their declaration in Ivato in his client’s absence.” The alleged putsch in question actually planed the creation of a Military Committee. Raymond Ranjeva did not lose his confidence before the judges, and the events proved him right. He and her daughter, entangled into a half political, half legal incident, were released.

However, the ruling power brought Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Randrianasoavina down. He, who led the military part of the putsch on March 17th, 2009 and imposed Andry Rajoelina as leader to the military board of directors, was sentenced to a lifetime forced labor. Out of the officers who declared the suspension of all transitional institutions on November 17th, 2010, on Andry Rajoelina’s personal referendum day, he was the single one sentenced this way. “I helped him, I even granted him a small plane of mine to evacuate him to La Reunion. How could I ever have been longing for such a condemnation,” skirted Andry Rajoelina around during an interview.

So, what was “Colonel Charles’s crime” which deserved a far heavier punishment than that of his superiors, Generals Rakotonandrasana and Raoelina, who were sentenced to a seven years long forced labor. That was the price for his threats to reveal the inconvenient truth about the year 2009’s putsch. The maverick officer already escaped death once after having been beaten up in jail in Tsiafahy. The other ones directly linked to the statement produced in Ivato would have to do five years, just like Colonel Coutiti for example.

The opposition denounced the trial, and argues that the court did not decide freely. The Union of Magistrates appears to agree and blames the HAT’s Justice minister. Augustus Marius currently leads the offensive against a Christine Razanamahasoa refusing to sign the resolution requiring freedom for judges and judicial independence.

The President of SMM holds the current minister as the main problem which undermines the justice in Madagascar. He busted her orders repeatedly given to judges, and one of her interventions in favor of a business company involved in several cases as an example. Disputes with the national police eased ever since. Judges are now jointly turning against the HAT’s justice minister, who has been patching up many politically motivated trials since 2009. Her first defense line: “slander”.

Christine Razanamahasoa is actually a TGV movement veteran, appointed as an insurgent government’s justice minister on the place of May 13th. The Rajoelina sphere has been keeping her in charge at any cost, since she is the one supposed to keep the president ousted in 2009 at large. Now that the crisis settlement process is focusing on the amnesty bill, draft of which remains under the minister’s control, the selection of the figures to be pardoned is likely to be a duty for judges. Good incentive to a challenge, isn’t it?