Seeing a person you know in prison - a story from my fictional brain- but the court details are for real.

Seeing a person you know in prison

I was praying to god to save my kids from any problems that may lead them to be prosecuted or jailed. The bank was not quick enough to give me the bail money so I had to use my sharp tongue to make the manager come out of his tower to facilitate the withdrawal from my account. Drove to court in a haste. Even though the person I was trying to bail is not a relative, the mere fact that I know that person was a sufficient reason to leave my busy schedule and drive all the way to the court. Apparently the landlord of this person's staff apartment which since have been vacated and handed over, had falsified documents to say that the rent was not paid and made a law suit against him. The courts do not take facts, they will entertain any request as there will be a charge for this and it sone way of making money. So if an ant goes there and files a law suit against me, I will be summoned, I cannot ask for the grounds of the law suit, as this is secondary.

Anyway, apparently the landlord had even falsified the address and gave wrong information about this person, the name was given Then to the police, and they caught him and put him in the temporary prison awaiting to take him to the main prison. They didn't even allow him to open the trunk of his car to get his wallet and the rest of his documents.

Anyway, after hunting for a car park and begging few people to provide me with coins in exchange to my five dirhams, I found the jail and saw this very polite, highly educated and intelligent IT person in jail, He is the age of my son and for a fraction of a second I felt total dismay to the system. And again I prayed to God not to put my kids in a similar position.

The process in the courts was so complicated, one would have assumed that he had told them that some one is coming to pay the bail money, regardless of course they were calling me something like every second and saying that if the money doesn't arrive before one pm they will transfer him to the real jail. So once I reached they sent me to a room in another floor, I asked for the person whom I need to talk to, who said that I have to wait for the judge, then I said why can't I pay while waiting for the judge, he agreed; off I went to the bank at the courts basement. The queue was as long as the seine river, with no one behind the counter, I kept on looking at my watch to see if it's one yet? And the cashier is still not there, I asked the six staff members of the bank, they said that they don't know where she is, and if I want to complain I can go to the manager of the bank, the manager pretended that he heard me but he didn't, I went back and the queue had become even longer, it seemed to me that everybody in Dubai has some sort of case against them.

Then someone phoned me saying that he is the lawyer of my colleague, oh so he has a lawyer? I thanked my stars as that would be the only way the process could be simplified. The lawyer took me to another counter that actually accepts cash from the people, but that counter had no sign on it, thus this person would be sitting there twiddling his thumb and the girl at the bank tries to find an excuse just to take a breather. Complete and utter madness. When they mention E-government I laugh now, as what is happening here has nothing to do with E it's a covered up unemployment. The government needs to wake up and corrects this. Luckily I dont have lots of dealings with any goverment department otherwise I think I will start to have diabetes high blood pressure and all the illnesses associated with being upset, stressed and angry.

I hated that day, I am serious in praying to God to save my kids, even though they are Arabs but they never had to face such situations, call them spoilt, call them pampered, call them sheltered I don't really care, I just don't want them to be subjected to unnecessary bad situations. The economic crisis in the country had changed every ones attitude. This land lord for example must be owing lots of money to real estate companies, and the only way to pay back is by cheating the less advantaged. Thus the economic crisis had breaded crocks, and these crocks are not asked for proof when they make a law suit against anyone. So tomorrow it could be me, or you. Just be very careful and cover all your bases, or go to the mattresses as the God father would have said.

In my opinion, the court should ensure the correctness of the case prior to accepting it and wasting everybody's time, if they did that we will have less people working there with more efficient process. But who am I to even utter this word?