Editorial | States of emergency are serious business

For anyone who mightn't have understood, the controversy over the Keith Clarke immunity certificates should have brought home the fact that the declaration of a state of public emergency is serious business. During such a period, rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution can be abridged.

Further, as the Clarke case demonstrates, it is possible for the security forces to ask for, and receive, insulation for actions during a state of public emergency for which they might otherwise be held criminally or civilly accountable. That is why governments have an obligation not to make a compelling case for the declaration of a public emergency, but for keeping it in place for extended periods.

Keith Clarke was a well-known and socially respectable accountant and auditor. Eight years ago this month, he was killed by soldiers at his home in a Kingston suburb, shot 21 times - 16 times in the back. It was during the period of the west Kingston state of emergency, declared as part of the operation to arrest for extradition the politically aligned crime boss, Christopher Coke, and to rout Coke's private militia from his redoubt at Tivoli Gardens.

In 2012, three low-ranked soldiers were charged with murder over Mr Clarke's death, but on the eve of their trial last month, they produced certificates of immunity to the effect that they had acted "in good faith", in the context of the state of emergency, for the preservation of public order.

Section 3 (1) of Jamaica's Emergency Powers Act makes it lawful for the governor general, which effectively means the administration of the day, to make regulations for its operation, which may include conferring or imposing "on any government department or any persons in Her Majesty's service or acting on Her Majesty's behalf such powers and duties as the governor general may deem necessary or expedient for the preservation of the peace, for securing and regulating the supply and distribution of food, water, fuel, light and other necessities, for maintaining the means of transit or locomotion, and for any other purposes essential to the public safety and the life of the community, and may make such provisions incidental to the powers aforesaid".

It is a clause in the 2010 regulations exempting members of the security forces from "action, suit, prosecution or other proceeding in respect of any act done in good faith during the emergency period" that the soldiers in the Keith Clarke case sought to exercise.

This is part of the backdrop against which the Holness administration will today ask Parliament for an extension of the state of emergency that has been in force in St James since January and the pressure it has been placing on the Opposition to support the move - which they say they will.

Questions valid

Like Peter Phillips, the opposition leader, however, we do not believe that that support should be uncritical and that future extensions, if asked for, should be automatic. The St James state of emergency has had a clear dampening effect on the parish's crisis of murder.

It is true, too, that despite some complaints, there has been no widespread claims of abuse of citizens' rights by the security forces. The gains made against criminals in the parish appear to be more from the numbers of police and soldiers in the area rather than the special powers associated with the state of emergency.

These powers can be abused. And it is not for nothing that the Constitution insists upon a special majority in the legislature for the extension of public emergency beyond an initial two weeks. Moreover, if a state of emergency becomes a regular crime-fighting tool, and all other elements of a liberal democracy remain intact, it will soon lose its effectiveness as criminals become wise to the game.