Barbados ignores court orders to pay Shanique Myrie, Al Barrack

Al Barrack reduced to this to try and have the government obey the court.

What if you sue the Government of Barbados and the court orders Barbados to pay you? What then?

For contractor Al Barrack, it has been eight years since the court ordered the Government to pay up $34 million. The government’s response was to thumb its nose at the court and attempt to destroy Al Barrack as his world crumbled around him. And that’s what they have been doing to Al Barrack since 2006.

And why shouldn’t the government thumb its nose at the court? Everybody on this rock knows how cosy things are between the political elites and the courts. If a judge isn’t married or cousin to a political elite, it’s a surprise ’bout hey. Even our last Chief Justice was himself a politician. In small island nations you can’t get away from this incest. It’s just the way things are.

But once the court orders payment, you’d figure there would be compliance, right? Ha! What do you know?

The government is broke – so payment of court settlements and orders are no priority at all. If the government doesn’t just do what it wants and send in the military, it will ignore you like Shanique Myrie, Al Barrack and others who usually fade away and give up.

Shanique Myrie though is high profile and poisoning Jamaican-Bajan relations so she’ll probably be paid. The AG says Miss Myrie will be paid this week, but Myrie probably won’t believe him until the money is actually in her bank account.

And Al Barrack? The government says it will pay him next month. Wuhloss! That’s the same thing PM Stuart said two years ago!

Sure, sure: Barrack will be paid. And the tooth fairy is real.