Kevin O'Brien  Chang, Contributor

The famous Japanese story, 'In a Grove', presents seven varying accounts of a samurai's death. Each chapter both clarifies and obfuscates what the reader knows, creating a confused vision of events that brings into question the human capacity to perceive and transmit objective truth.

This probably sounds familiar to anyone who followed the Dudus-Manatt enquiry. Not only did witnesses often contradict each other, but media coverage was extremely inconsistent, often highlighting trivialities and ignoring crucial pieces of evidence. No wonder the majority of Jamaicans, who followed events mainly through radio and TV clips and newspaper reports, could not make heads or tails of what took place, and mostly dismissed it as 'a waste of time'.

Based on vox pops, the whole thing was largely a big media hype. Few working folk paid close attention, and fewer still had any understanding of events. People's conclusions seemed generally based on whether they found K.D. Knight learned and incisive, or boorish and arrogant. In my opinion, his rudeness to the commissioners and Hugh Small crossed the bounds of civilised decency.

Generally lost in the whole mix was the commission's remit, which, in summary, was: to enquire into the issues relating to the extradition request for Christopher Coke, the manner in which the request was handled, and the conduct of the various public officials who handled the request; the circumstances in which the services of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips were engaged, by whom were they engaged and on whose behalf they were authorised to act; whether there was any misconduct by any person and, if so, to make recommendations to the relevant authority for appropriate action.

The answers to the big questions were fairly clear. No evidence or documents were produced to show that Manatt had been officially engaged by the Government. Though he did not testify, a tape was played in which Harold Brady clearly stated that he had engaged Manatt as a client of the JLP, and that Manatt's assertion that they had been hired by the Government was a 'mistake which would be corrected'.

only Brady knows

How this mistake came to be is something only Brady knows, and without his testimony the whole thing resembled a jigsaw puzzle with a vital piece missing. Surely Messrs George, Irons and Scharschmidt must recommend the replacement of the nonsensical J$500 fine for not appearing before an official commission, with both jail time and a meaningful financial penalty.

The issue of whether Coke's extradition had been illegally blocked was pretty much settled in Douglas Leys' testimony, and no cross-examiner challenged him on this fact, that he had consulted five eminent lawyers - Patrick Robinson, a Commonwealth lawyer, Frank Phipps, Hugh Small and Lloyd Barnett. They all agreed that, based on the evidence presented by the United States, there were legitimate reasons not to extradite. Other respected lawyers like Jacqueline Samuels-Brown also publicly agreed with this view.

Yet, if the large conclusions are not much in dispute, few testifiers seemed to be telling the whole truth. Of the main players, only Lackston Robinson seemed consistent all the way through.

The assistant DPP seemed to be trying to cover up a number of blunders he made. Leys said he had no idea that Harold Brady had any connection with the extradition matter when he recommended Manatt to him. Dorothy Lightbourne also said she never discussed the matter with Brady. But then Leys' attorney produced a rather suspicious email showing both in contact very early with Brady on the issue. If this was not a valid email, Leys concocted false evidence. If it is authentic, Leys was clearly untruthful in claiming that his verbal and email dealings with Brady and Manatt were just 'innocent coincidences'.

Lightbourne denied sending the email. But set up or not, her credibility was shot to pieces when she claimed not to have read the affidavit of her case against Coke, and to disagree with the interpretations of her own lawyers in the matter. This was either dishonesty or dereliction of duty. Either surely disqualifies her from holding her present jobs.

Indeed, the posts of attorney general and justice minister should never again be held by one person. They say a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. But was not this what basically transpired when Attorney General Lightbourne advised Justice Minister Lightbourne?

As for the controversial MOUs, well, it is quite possible that they helped to stamp out the cocaine trade in Jamaica. But surely, measures that affect every Jamaican must get Cabinet approval.

unable to recall

Both former and present ministers of security, Peter Phillips and Dwight Nelson, seemed unable to recall quite a bit. Again, the media showed either extreme incompetence or extreme bias by somehow foisting the "I can't recall" mantra on to Nelson, since Phillips used the phrase first and just as often. Indeed, having watched most of the enquiry live, I can state with confidence that the media reports - both printed and electronic - often bore little resemblance to what actually transpired. For instance, Leys' testimony of having consulted five prominent lawyers never made the print media. Nor did another crucial piece of evidence, Lightbourne's letter to Manatt, and Manatt's reply. Are our national papers losing their sense of public responsibility?

Bruce Golding gave the kind of performance most Jamaicans expected, smoothly well spoken and, for the most part, intellectually convincing. Which is to say his supporters saw a forthright man of truth, while his detractors saw a sweet-mouth Anancy. Personally, after hearing Golding's testimony my reaction was: Why didn't the man simply release a written statement containing all these facts, and save us all the time and cost of this enquiry?

Did he tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Well, no politician ever can, especially prime ministers, who have to balance 100 conflicting points of interest on the head of a pin. Is Bruce "I authorised Manatt's engagement as JLP leader (but not as prime minister)" Golding any less honest than P.J. "I'm resigning because I signed the illegal waiver (but I shall return)" Patterson? Or Edward "There are no escape tunnels in Tivoli (even though we saw them on TV)" Seaga? Or Portia "Don't ask me, ask the PNP about the Trafigura money (but will that satisfy the Dutch investigators)" Simpson Miller?

However, Golding often gives off a sense of moral superiority that makes his not-infrequent lapses into inexactness especially irritating. He is forever clothing himself with garments of righteousness, only to cast them off at the first political difficulty. Look how he boasted about "I will show my financials tomorrow since I have nothing to hide", only to go totally silent on the issue after that. Small wonder the PNP makes Eli songs about him.

But then, hypocrisy was hardly in short supply at this enquiry. One minute K.D. Knight was thundering "Don't tell me about party contributions being private! Who paid that US$50,000 to Manatt?" Then we heard him murmur in an aside, "I'm not being paid ... by the Government." Then, when asked who was paying the PNP lawyers, A.J. Nicholson muttered something along the lines of "We'll tell you later."

The Manatt commission sat for 44 days. At a usual three and a half hours per day, and sometimes more, this means more than 150 hours in court. Add a conservative 150 hours of preparation, and you get a probably low-side 300 billing hours. The big-gun lawyers - Phipps, Small, Knight, Atkinson, Barnett - apparently got US$350 per hour. Multiplied by 300 hours, this works out to more than US$100,000 apiece. When you add in the commissioners and the other lawyers, well, that Manatt US$50,000 looks like peanuts.

Maybe we need another enquiry into where all this legal money is coming from!