Letter to the Editor - Widening main road at Providence not a good idea |17 April 2015

Please allow me to make a comment on two articles in your issue of April 16, 2015.

You report on your front page that management of the Providence Industrial Estate plans to widen the roads, and you published a picture of the main thoroughfare leading in and out of the estate from the highway.

It is my considered opinion that widening the main thoroughfare would be a mistake. What are needed first and foremost are parking spaces off the road. This can be achieved by taking half of the current roadside parking spaces on each side of the road to add to the existing off parking/pavement in front of the shops to turn it into a single lane one-way access road and parking spaces at right angle to the main road. Widening this road would only increase congestion as there are bottlenecks at either end of the thoroughfare.

My other comment is in regard to the jury system commented upon by Roy Fonseka. The jury system is based on the principle that for a capital crime at least, murder being one of them, the accused has to be judged by a panel (jury) of his or her peers (although capital punishment has been abolished under our constitution). The US is probably the only country that has developed the jury system to its fullest extent, including the use of a jury to determine if a person has a case to answer when accused of a serious crime.

Judges know the law granted but their job is to ensure that any evidence presented in court has been collected according to law. Hence judges decide which evidence is consistent with law to be admitted so that an accused is not deprived of his or her constitutional right of being innocent until proven guilty by the evidence. Beyond that judges are like any ordinary citizens when it comes to considering whether the evidence presented in open court proves the accused guilty beyond doubt of the charges.

It would be a sad indictment of our society today if we have no faith in a panel of our fellow citizens, one’s peers, to be able to make a judgement on whether an accused, given the evidence in an open court against him or her, is guilty beyond a shadow of doubt of the serious charge or charges levelled against him or her.  

Paul Chow