Fighting a case in court – criminal or industrial relations – may be fraught with difficulties and may be won or lost not on the basis of ethics or morality, but by the verbal skills of the lawyer involved, the advocate for the prosecution, or, indeed, on the temperament or personal experience of the presiding judge.

Books have been written over centuries about the effect on the subsequent course of justice and the subsequent reputation of the legal profession, depending on one of these.

When someone is outside the possibility of attaining a remedy to a perceived injustice in the social history of TT and decides to resort to revenge instead, rather than use violence “expressed or implied, oral or in writing” as the Industrial Relations Act (IRA) puts it, Trinis have used a far more effective method…calypso, which uses the weapons of ridicule, sarcasm and innuendo.

One of the most fundamental principles of natural justice, now passed into constitutional law not only in the Commonwealth, but also in most states of the US, is the right of an accused person to defend themselves against an accusation, particularly but not exclusively when it could lead to penalties as severe as life sentences, termination of employment or death.

This includes the right of confrontation, absent from the judicial systems of dictatorships, but a fundamental and cherished principle of democracy.

The Mighty Sparrow, a poet in his own right, like Shakespeare, was a genius in targeting human weaknesses, hypocrisy and the underbelly of society.

You will remember his unforgettable calypso That is All. If you don’t, look it up, as it paints the unforgettable defence he used when a witness told his wife she had seen Sparrow at the beach lying on top of a young woman, gyrating.

His defence was that a vicious Africanised bee had landed on her and he had bravely flung himself on top of her to protect her.

"That is all, that is all, that is all" – and as ridiculous as it was, the lesson he was teaching, in true Sparrow style, was that lies can be seen through, like those of any dictator.

If this had been an industrial-relations case, under the principle of confrontation, he would have had the right to confront the witness in court, where he could cross-examine her to uncover the truth.

Or not, as the case may be. He also had the right, if he knew he was guilty, just to remain silent.

In industrial relations, it is the right – and it is known as a right of confrontation – the right of the accused to face the accuser’s witnesses and dispute the witnesses’ testimony.

This does not have to be done as part of a formal organisational disciplinary procedure, and I will go into why in a moment.

The law is clear that the attempt to sort out the grievance, if unresolved otherwise or done bilaterally, must go to the Labour Ministry for conciliation, or to the court.

And in order not to face the ridicule of co-workers, for example in sexual-misbehaviour cases, I have encountered people with courage and the desire not to be exposed to