Editorial | Stalling the public defender

In the absence of a compelling explanation to the contrary, it is hard to conclude other than that the constabulary deliberately frustrated attempts by the Office of the Public Defender (OPD) to monitor its handling of detainees under states of public emergency (SOEs).

The police resorted to the technicalities of law in erecting ramparts, which the public defender, Carolyn Reid-Cameron, given her mandate to protect the constitutional rights of Jamaicans, should challenge in the courts. Notwithstanding the signal by Police Commissioner Major General Antony Anderson that the withheld data about detentions will now be forthcoming, Ms Reid-Cameron should seek a judicial review of the constabulary’s behaviour in the matter.

At the same time, the Police Civilian Oversight Authority, which has statutory powers to inspect police stations and to review some aspects of the operations of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), should request the same data that was denied to the public defender. It should also formally inspect the station diaries and facilities where all SOEs detainees have been held. Its findings should be detailed in a special report to Parliament.

These actions are not intended to embarrass the JCF or to undermine its ability to do its jobs in accordance with the law. They are to ensure accountability and transparency, which will redound to the benefit of the police, who suffer from low levels of public trust. Negative attitudes of the constabulary will change if they are perceived to respect all citizens, and are fair and transparent in their actions.

The current dispute between the public defender and the JCF was highlighted at a hearing of Parliament’s Internal and External Committee (IEC) this week, when the OPD related how it has been starved of information about persons detained under SOEs.

NOT WITHOUT ANTECEDENT

This matter is not without an antecedent.

The Holness administration has since 2018 used SOEs as its main crime-fighting tool. Emergency powers give the security forces great leeway to search and detain citizens and to hold them for long periods before taking them to court.

In late 2018, months into the first SOE in the northwestern parish of St James, Arlene Harrison-Henry, Ms Reid-Cameron’s predecessor, issued a report pointing to the seemingly indiscriminate manner young men were being detained under the emergency powers, and the squalor of the lock-ups in which they were held.

While police highlighted a sharp drop in homicide in the parish, where the homicide rate was over three times the national average, Ms Harrison-Henry found that of 3,867 people detained over a 10-month period, only 139, or 3.8 per cent, were charged with criminal offences. When those charged with petty offences were subtracted, that figure fell to 2.3 per cent.

The St James police questioned the OPD’s analysis of the data, and as the deputy public defender, Herbert McKenzie, reminded the IEC, accused the OPD of seeking “to demean the police”. There was no pushback against those sentiments by the constabulary’s brass. Indeed, Commissioner Anderson complained at the time that while there were criticisms of the squalor of lock-ups, there were not similar concerns for the generally poor state of police stations where his officers worked.

ERECTED ROADBLOCKS

Since then, it appears that rather than providing raw data from which the OPD can draw its own conclusions, the police erected roadblocks, giving only limited information.

For example, in November 2021, in the midst of a SOE in one section of the capital, Ms Harrison-Henry, the parliamentary committee was told, asked the Kingston Central Police Station for detailed information on five detainees. The response was merely to cite the sections of the emergency powers regulations under which they were being held.

When the public defender reminded the office’s remit to help people whose constitutional rights were in danger of being infringed, the matter was apparently taken over by the JCF’s Legal Affairs Division. Its head asked the OPD for the section of the law that gave it authority to request the information, and lectured the public defender on the limitations of her powers to investigate matters for which claimants have alternative remedies. With respect to the five detainees, the JCF’s legal office retorted that three had arranged their own lawyers, and two were assigned legal aid attorneys.

It is perplexing that the JCF would attempt to circumscribe any investigation by the public defender, rather than being open and transparent in its action. It is also surprising that Commissioner Anderson was ignorant of these developments, complaining at the hearing that “nobody reached out to me” for the information that may have been “stuck somewhere in my organisation”.

Few issues have been politically more contentious in Jamaica in recent times than the states of public emergency, on which the courts have ruled twice in favour of people questioning the constitutionality of aspects of their detention. In the circumstances, it is hard to imagine why, on such a sensitive matter, an obviously controversial posture was adopted without first getting the authority of the commissioner.