G2K Welcomes Planned Overhaul of Justice System

Generation 2000 (G2K), the young professionals arm of the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), has welcomed the government's announcement that it will begin a process to comprehensively overhaul the country's justice system.

According to G2K president Senator Chris Tufton, the organisation is "relieved to hear the Government finally accepting what has been an obvious fact for a long time, that the proper and effective administration of justice in the country has been hampered and undermined by a litany of deficiencies that have accumulated over the years and have led to too many cases of justice being delayed and denied".

He said a recent G2K audit of state facilities and personnel charged with the administration of justice showed that for the period April 2003 to March 2004 a total of 553 cases were listed during the Christmas term of the Circuit Court but only 205 (37 per cent) were disposed of, while in the Summer term 504 cases were set for trial, of which only 210 (41.6 per cent) were disposed of. In the Easter term, of the 503 cases set for trial only 216 (42.9 per cent) were completed.

"In the Supreme Court (Criminal Division), less than 40 per cent of the cases pending are disposed of during the year, which means over 300 cases pending trial are carried forward, or over 300 accused persons, innocent until proven guilty, may well be locked up from term to term and, possibly, from year to year," Tufton said.

He attributed these delays to a number of deficiencies in the system including:
. a lack of stenographers and computerisation of cases;

. inadequate and dilapidated court houses and support facilities;

. inadequate staffing at the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions; . inadequate legal aid support for poor litigants and accused persons; and

. an ineffective witness protection programme.Tufton's comments follow on those of JLP spokesman on justice Delroy Chuck who, in response to the not guilty verdict in the Crawle murder trial, said that the system was in crisis and in need of an inquiry to identify and remedy weaknesses.

The December 20 Crawle verdict, which absolved five policemen of murder in the shooting deaths of four persons in Crawle, Clarendon in 2003, as well as the acquittal a fortnight before of three other policemen accused of murdering 15 year-old Jason Smith, earned the ire of the JLP and rights groups.

Yesterday, Tufton called on the government to treat the problems in the justice system as priority in its proposed overhaul, and suggested that the administration:
. Computerise the entire court system, type out court transcripts at the end of each day's court proceedings, network all the court rooms so that the relevant information can be transmitted immediately to the relevant court employee(s) to retrieve court documents, and have e-mail access so that lawyers can communicate instantaneously with the court employee(s);

. Expand and upgrade court buildings and facilities for a safer and more effective working environment;

. Implement plea bargaining into the justice system. This will have an immediate positive impact on clearing the backlog of criminal cases presently in the courts;

. Abolish the practice of unsworn statements from the dock as was done in the United Kingdom in 1982;

. Put in place the infrastructure and require each alleged offender and deportees who have committed serious crimes to give his or her DNA and fingerprints to be stored in a central data base. This will allow for crime to be solved by matching DNA and or fingerprints taken at a crime scene with those stored on the said database; and

. Assign special police investigators to murder cases where there have been no arrest(s) within 48 hours. This would require the recruitment and training of a cadre of special police investigators whose sole job is homicide investigations.

These legislative and infrastructure reforms, Tufton said, "would go a far way in addressing the country's crime problem and restore confidence in the justice system".

He also urged the prime minister to ensure, as a sign of his sincerity of purpose, that the proposed overhaul is irreversibly set in motion before he demits office.

(Jamaica Observer report Jan. 9, 2006)