By Benjamín Noria
HAVANA TIMES – On Saturday, I received a post via WhatsApp discussing the sentences issued for some doctors who were prosecuted by a criminal court in Bayamo. These doctors belonged to the Carlos Manuel de Cespedes Hospital in Bayamo, Granma, and were accused of medical negligence in November 2023, following the death of a patient in the operating room. The defendants claimed that the main cause was the lack of supplies such as suture material, probes, and a defective CT scanner in this hospital.
William Perez Rodriguez has a one-year prison sentence, radiologist Elizabeth Silveira was acquitted, Rafael Jose Sanchez Vazquez has a two-year prison sentence, Yoandra Quesada Labrada has one year and six months, Ristian Solano has three years, and Henry Rosales Pompa has two years.
What a misfortune for these healthcare professionals to fall under the claws of a Cuban court in the service of the totalitarian government. It is truly regrettable what has happened to these individuals. Of course, the worst could be expected from the court that sentenced them. There is a scientific law that states that when totalitarian governments are in crisis, they become more repressive.
I ask, how is it possible that there is a Ministry of Justice in a country with a totalitarian government? How can it have this adjective or grammatical term complement? It is an aberration and goes against scientific concepts that a Ministry of Justice can be established in a dictatorship. Please, think about this. This name is incorrect.
Dictatorships are absolutist governments. Everything is subject to the dictator’s whims. It is similar to when King Louis XIV said that the state was him. Dictatorships have strict control over mass media, the army, and the police. These governments decide which movies can be watched and which cannot, and which subjects can be taught in education.
Scientifically, Justice can only be typical of republics and democracies where there is a separation of legislative, executive, and judicial powers. It seems to me that there is an impropriety in talking about a Ministry of Justice in a dictatorial regime.
Justice is related to common will, with a proportion of equality for each member of society. It can only appear in republics, where sovereignty rests with the people, universal suffrage exists, and the country’s president must be accountable for mismanagement during their term.
Finally, for Justice to function, the principle of Legality must prevail, through which it is possible to respect the fundamental rights of all citizens of a country and consider their dignity as individuals.
The Cuban state does not meet any of these above requirements, so I don’t understand the government’s decision to name a ministry with such a cherished universal value as Justice. Therefore, I consider null and void all those criminal trials conducted in Cuba under a universal value that has never existed.
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