It has now been two and a half years since Surjit was brutally murdered. All his family ever wanted was for his killers to be brought to justice.  His death was long after Stephen Lawrence’s and yet the way the family has been treated demonstrates that the lessons of Stephen Lawrence’s tragic death have still not been learnt.

All the Chhokar family lived for after the murder of their son was a hope for justice, but that hope was destroyed last November. We had hoped that hope could be renewed by your Inquiries but it is clear that was never the intention

The new century promised much in the shape of the McPherson report. We were told we were in a post-McPherson paradise, but we have seen little evidence of that in Scotland. Despite a face-lift by the authorities, the police and prosecution are still unaccountable and the judiciary remains immune from the Lawrence recommendations. Racist attacks are at their highest level in Scotland, but support for the victim remains ad hoc at best but more often miserable.

I pay tribute to the courage, tenacity and perseverance of the Chhokar family. They never wanted to be campaigners, but the Scottish Criminal Justice System gave them little alternative. The fact that Surjit and his family deserve justice is an understatement. The access to it and its delivery is a responsibility that we all must share.

Three years of struggle have left an enormous strain on their health and peace of mind. There has been no opportunity for the family to grieve for Surjit. A mother and father have been forced through the love of their son to become campaigners. There have been times when I have seen them emotionally tired, their tears dried up and unable to stand or walk further, but they have carried on addressing meetings, conferences and demonstrations in the hope that they will get justice for their son.

Every human being is entitled to justice and our families should not have to set up campaigns simply because it is the only way the authorities will listen to them or give answers. The Chhokar Family is not here today to give evidence because this Inquiry is nothing more than another cover-up conducted by the legal establishment. The words I read on the steps of the High Court last November are as valid today- ‘There are two systems of justice at work in this country, one for the rich and a very different one for black people and the poor.’ 

THE SETTING UP OF THE INQUIRIES

In the aftermath of  the verdict the Chhokar Family and myself had meetings with the Lord Advocate Colin Boyd QC, the First Minister Henry McLeish, the Justice Minister Jim Wallace QC, the Solicitor General Neil Davidson QC , the Stephen Lawrence Steering Committee and Sir Antony Campbell heading the inquiry into the Prosecution and yourself Dr Jandoo..

But as time passed it soon became clear that the purpose of these meetings were nothing more than a cynical exercise to give an air of legitimacy to these proceedings, to show that they really cared about the Chhokar Family. We said then that we were not interested in tea and sympathy but wanted practical results.

After the sense of betrayal that the Chhokar Family felt at the hands of the criminal justice system, no one could have blamed them not to have talked to anyone. Yet at each stage the family offered concessions and made requests that would allowed them to have taken part in these proceedings, but the response was the same from the legal establishment to the Scottish Executive, one of no compromise and unwillingness to concede on any issue. Consistently requests that could have only assisted the Inquiries in its search for the truth were denied.

You took the Family’s dignity and willingness to reason as a sign of weakness and thought that through erecting a wall of silence that the family would eventually give your Inquiries their stamp of approval.

We have repeatedly said to yourself, Dr Jandoo and to Sir Anthony and to the Ministers, that without the Chhokar Family you have no Inquiry. We do not understand how your Inquiry can claim to be drawing to a close, when the key individuals the Chhokar Family, have not even given evidence. You have questioned Police Officers and Crown Officials about how they treated the family. They will have told you nothing new because behind closed doors they are faceless and immune from accountability. 

At the start of the Inquiries we were assured that that both Inquiries would approach the Chhokar case with an open mind. But this has not been the case. Both Inquiries are already prejudged, The Campbell Inquiry has presumed that incompetence was the basis of the Crowns failure to successfully prosecute Surjit’s Killers.

Your Inquiry has leaked findings that the Police are institutionally racist but the Crown Office were incompetent and racism had no role to play in their family liaison or decision making.

You have told us nothing new, we know the Police are institutionally racist and I myself have been their fiercest critic over the years but it was not the Police who let Surjit’s killers walk free. In the Courts it was not the Police who patronised the Chhokar family and treated them in a manner which we have grown accustomed to recognise as one borne of racism.

For months we have heard the words Institutional racism and unwitting racism, there was nothing unwitting about the manner in which the system treated this family. Your procedures and guidelines were in place but all you could see was the colour of their skin, their inability to speak English, their Asian clothes, their beards and turbans. At that time you saw no dignity or courage but most of all the pain of losing a child.

Throughout this Inquiry it has become clear that the Crown’s strategy has been to get a verdict of incompetence. This strategy has contradicted the Lord Advocate and Justice Ministers assurances that the Inquiries would be approached with an open mind.

BOYCOTT OF THESE PUBLIC SESSIONS 

We know that you have written to hundreds of individuals and organisations asking them to take part in two day public sessions. We condemned these sessions because they were a deliberate attempt to give your Inquiry some form of legitimacy.

What exactly did you hope to achieve by getting these people to speak publicly . The key witnesses who failed the Chhokar Family, the Police Officers, the Depute Fiscal Andrew MacDonald, the Regional Fiscal Douglas Brown, the Crown Counsel, the Lord Advocate, the Crown Agents were protected from the public scrutiny and spoke behind closed doors. These Public Sessions were nothing more than a tokenistic attempt to trick the black community into giving your findings their stamp of approval.

You have failed Dr Jandoo, because it is clear that everyone has heeded the calls for a boycott in support of the family’s demand for a genuine independent public inquiry. Your public session will not take place tomorrow and we are lead to believe that only we shall speak today.

We do not even know what sort of inquiry you have conducted because you did not even grant Mr & Mrs Chhokar the right to know who would be called to give evidence. They were not even given the right to know what questions were asked and what answers were given.  So what sort of an Inquiry is this?

WHY NOT A PUBLIC INQUIRY?

The fact that you sit there as Judge, Prosecution, Defence and Jury goes against the fundamental tenets of justice.

It is now well documented that you questioned my role as the family’s legal representative and attempted to dictate to my firm that a senior partner should take over. You angered and upset the Chhokar family by your actions but drew even more attention to your role as a Junior Counsel.

You have failed to answer the question that we have asked you in writing on several occasions. The legal establishment works on the basis of hierarchy. How could any Junior Counsel subject senior Crown Counsel to necessary critical questioning when he would have to rely on them for his livelihood? It clear what your appointment was intended to achieve- a cover up.

The analogy I would use is one of sending in a corporal into the officers’ barracks to investigate the Generals. For hundreds of years people such as those who failed the Chhokars have been used to asking the questions, not answering them.

Great play was made of the Lord Advocate’s decision to appoint a Supreme Court Justice from Northern Ireland to prove independence yet when it came to the treatment of the family a junior counsel was appointed, who was an ad hoc advocate depute. With the greatest respect there is nothing independent about appointment of someone who relies on the Crown Office for work or judicial appointments.   

Rather than looking at all the evidence, your strategy has contradicted the assurances you gave to us at our first meeting with you on February 16^th, that you would be open minded, robust and determined to search for the truth.

The leaks and the manner in which you have conducted yourself vindicates the stance of the Chhokar Family, in not giving evidence to your Inquiry. We were concerned to see an article in the Scotland on Sunday on 6^th May , leaked by your Inquiry. Whilst the article states that you refuse to comment, my concern was greatly increased when I realised the author of the article Murdo McLeod was actually introduced by you to me over a year ago as your close personal friend.

We find it shocking that you have abused your position to as head of this Inquiry, leaking findings which can have no basis when the task of gathering evidence is not even over.

ROLE OF LORD ADVOCATE

We have found it surprising that you have refused to accept or deny the accusation that you are a close personal friend of the previous Lord Advocate, Lord Hardie who presided over the first have of this case. Indeed over the course of the year you boasted on several occasions of advising the LA as you called him on matters relating to Chhokar.

You do in fact owe a great deal to Lord Hardie, he was responsible for your appointment as a temporary sheriff and then ad hoc advocate depute, he gave you your first big break when he appeared with you as Senior Counsel in the case over the Free Church..   Your failure repeatedly to challenge these facts has drawn question marks over your impartiality, ability and determination to search for the truth.

ABUSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS?

We would submit that the Private Inquiries over which Jim Wallace and the Lord Advocate preside are ‘Public Authorities’ within the meaning of Section 6 of the Human Rights Act (HRA) and such they are under a duty to act in a way which is compatible with Convention Rights of the victim and the family. According to the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) Convention rights are not simply negative undertakings. There are according to the Court ‘positive obligations’ that make protection accorded under the Convention ‘genuine and effective, not theoretical and illusory’.

These include where there has been a death, and by reference to Article 2 (right to life) Article 10 (Freedom of Information) and Article 13(right to an effective remedy) a positive obligation to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death.

The Court has further held that an investigation must be ‘effective’ in that it is ‘thorough, impartial and careful’[1] Moreover in Keenan v United Kingdom, the Court considered that in order for an investigation into a death to be ‘effective’ it must include ‘effective access for the complainant to the investigation.’

Over the months that passed since the second verdict, the words of the Lord Advocate Colin Boyd QC  have been repeated by the politicians, lawyers and media- ‘I have taken the unprecedented step of calling two independent inquiries’.

We have been told ‘accept this it’s the best you could get’. Let us get one thing straight the Lord Advocate offered the barest minimum and was forced into that position by a mother and father who refused to be shoved aside.

He did however take an unprecedented step, in that Scotland has a tradition of holding Public Inquiries not unaccountable ones behind closed doors. We would challenge the Lord Advocate to justify the basis of these Inquiries. In searching for precedents, I have found many to support the Chhokar Family’s demands for an Independent Public Inquiry.

‘Where public disquiet about a scandal or a disaster is of sufficient intensity, such disquiet can only be allayed, and public confidence can only be restored by an inquiry which is conducted with total transparency.’[2] It is deeply undemocratic not to hold a public inquiry which raises issues affecting public confidence other than in the view of the public.

It is judicial experience that taking evidence from witnesses out of the glare of public scrutiny in fact allows such witnesses to embellish their testimony rather than to be adhering to the unvarnished truth. It is often an opportunity to cast blame on others.[3]

Second, far from the distractions of intensive media interests, yielding a far greater depth of information, it is in my view the contrary.

The media welcome the opportunity to report public inquiries and on the whole, act reasonably. By contrast the media resents being shut out of an inquiry conducted behind closed doors. They will endeavour to obtain information from those who have been present at the hearing and these appear as leaks in the Press. 

WHY HOLD AN INQUIRY IN PUBLIC

The reasons why courts nearly always sit in public may be of some significance, they were spelt out in the Court of Appeal by Lord Woolf Master of Rolls-

‘It is important not to forget why proceedings are required to be subjected to a full glare of a public hearing. It is necessary because the public nature of proceedings deters inappropriate behaviour on the part of the court. It also maintains the public’s confidence in the administration of justice. It enables the public to know that justice is being administered impartially. It can result in evidence becoming available which would not become available if the proceedings are conducted behind closed doors or with one or more of the parties or witnesses identity concealed. It makes uninformed and inaccurate  comment about the proceedings less likely.’[4]

The Chhokar family and the Scottish people had a legitimate expectation that their complaints would be publicly investigated and justice in their case be seen to be done.

The killers of Surjit Singh Chhokar will never face justice, so the only effective remedy was an open and public inquiry that assured the rights and interests of the Chhokar Family and with the power to determine responsibility for the injustice they have faced.  They were denied this and once more were shut out. If the Crown Office had nothing to hide then they had nothing to fear from a public inquiry.

It was irrational to conclude that the most appropriate way for the family to be involved would be to provide them with the opportunity to give evidence. It is frequently the case in inquiries and investigations that persons who may be giving evidence are still given the opportunity to ask questions of other witnesses. The most recent example of this was the Inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. The refusal by the Lord Advocate to allow the family ‘effective access’ and to participate in the Inquiries in a meaningful manner amounts to a violation and abuse of their human rights.

Can you imagine if the clock was turned back and the Lawrences had been denied disclosure of evidence, denied the rights of representation and the chairman had not had advisers with expertise in race appointed to assist him. Like your Inquiry the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry would have assisted just another cover up.

RIGHT TO REPRESENTATION AT BOTH INQUIRIES

The most fundamental demand that both Inquiries failed to meet was to allow the family to have representation at the Inquiries. The opportunity for making submissions and having representation in the proceedings by the family could not be said to prejudice the Inquiries- as the decision making or findings in fact would have remained with Sir Anthony Campbell or yourself Dr Jandoo.

THE DEMANDS FROM BOTH INQUIRIES

There are a number of requests that were made of both inquiries all of which were denied:-

1. For all witnesses to give evidence in public but allowing the Inquiry a degree of flexibility for sensitive evidence.
   

2. For the family to be represented by counsel at the inquiries
   

3. That the inquiries scope should have been widened to consider al the relevant issues.
   

4. The inquiries should have had lay advisers with experience of race relations appointed to assist the chairmen.
   

5. It was pointless in considering institutional racism in family liaison without considering the whole institution and that would have included the prosecution of the case.
   

6. All documents and evidence should be disclosed to the family or their lawyers to ensure no cover took place.
   

7. The inquiry should consider racial motivation and place it in the context of race cases that happened in Scottish courts.
   

8. The Inquiry should have access to all police documentation
   

9. The inquiry should have access to all internal documents and advice to ministers, crown agents and other officials on the handling of the case.
   

10. Fundamentally it was wrong that both inquiries should report to the Lord Advocate who would then choose what he wished to publish. The Chhokar family could have no faith in such a proposal. There had to be full disclosure of evidence.

All the above would have given legitimacy and credibilty and allowed an impartial inquiry to take place but five months have passed and not one request has been granted.

 
RACISM NOTHING TO DO WITH CHHOKAR CASE?

If the Chhokar case was not about race and racism-and you and the legal establishment have contended it is not-then its importance is drastically diminished. Without race this will merely become a debate about incompetence and funding, but with race it might challenge the foundations of our system of justice.

The Black community have no doubt that what Mr and Mrs Chhokar experienced at the hands of the police and the justice system would not have happened to the parents of a murdered white boy, and a large amount of public sympathy was surely prompted by the uneasy feeling that this might be true.

This was reflected in the terms of reference your inquiry was given, but that was pointless because when it came to the Inquiry into the prosecution of the case, racism would not even be considered. 

The Crown Office’s position on racism is a simple one; it played no part in the Chhokar case. As a general principle, they have been prepared to concede that there might be racists in the Crown Office but no more than in wider society. Any suggestion that the institution is collectively racist is rejected outright.

The bottom line is that they will be prepared to accept many failings-insensitivities, clumsiness, lack of awareness, lack of consideration, stereotyping and more-but they cannot accept the notion that it was anything more than a number of individual failures.

The patronizing treatment of the Chhokars and the reluctance to accept a racial motive were collective failures. Many have jumped to the conclusion that if Surjit’s murder was not racist, then this case had nothing to do with Stephen Lawrence. I have one thing to say on that matter, when an acquitted man’s sister gives evidence in court that he boasted ‘I stabbed a black bastard and got away with’. What racism are you looking for?

The separation of the two inquiries were flawed from day one. How on one level could you consider that racism may have had a role to play in the treatment of the Chhokar family but when it came to the prosecution of the case deny that the very same police officers, depute fiscals, procurators, and crown counsel switched off that institutional racism?

The crude view adopted by the Crown Office is to ask the question ‘are you racist?’ ‘No’ of course is the answer. The Crown Office is hardly likely to broadcast it views or commit them to paper, nor is it likely that Crown Officers would denounce each other as racists.  If racism was at work how could it be exposed? With your Inquiries this was never the intention.

But I will draw your attention to Sir William MacPherson  view of the institutional racism-

‘Unwitting racism can arise because of a lack of understanding, ignorance or mistaken beliefs. It can arise from well-intentioned but patronising words or actions. It can arise from the unfamiliarity with the behaviour or cultural traditions of people or families from minority ethnic communities. It can arise from racist stereotyping of black people as potential criminals or troublemakers . Often this arises out of uncritical self-understanding born out of an inflexible police ethos of the ‘traditional’ way of doing things. Futhermore, such attitudes can thrive in a tighly-knit community, so that there can be a collective failure to detect and outlaw this breed of racism.’[5]

CONCLUSION

The best possible tribute and memorial to Surjit Singh Chhokar, is the manner in which his memory is kept alive by the courage, stamina and persistence of his parents, Mr and Mrs Chhokar and his sister Manjit Sangha. Without their efforts, the struggle against racism and justice would have been seriously jeopardised. Surjits parents brought him to this country when he was five and they often wish they had never done so.

Surjit’s death must leave a legacy: a society free from racism and  a racist criminal justice system. This will be of little comfort perhaps to Surjit’s family. But if Surjit’s death like others before him are not to be in vain then some good must result. I believe that we all have a responsibility to ensure that we do not dishonour Surjit’s memory by doing nothing about fighting for an independent public inquiry.

To that end I and others in the trade union movement, organisations and campaigns have supported the Chhokar family in their quest for justice and will continue to do so. Today is not the end, but it is the end of your Inquiry Dr Jandoo . We cannot assist you in a cover up and condemn your treatment of the Chhokar family. 

The Chhokar family have shown us what the words love, dedication, struggle and justice really mean. They have been an inspiration to me and other family’s who have suffered in a similar fashion.

Action against injustice should be the test by which the Crown Office and you are judged.  What have you done to bring it to an end? Neither you Dr Jandoo or the Lord Advocate or the Scottish Executive can honestly say that you have done enough.