Manatt report worthless- PNP lawyers
Published:Friday | July 1, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Erica Virtue, Senior Gleaner Writer
Three weeks after the tabling of the Manatt-Dudus commission of enquiry report, lawyers representing the People's National Party (PNP) at the enquiry yesterday rubbished the commissioners' final report, calling it "a colossal waste of time" and "not worth a dime".
During a press conference held yesterday at the party's Old Hope Road, St Andrew, headquarters, the lawyers slammed the report as lacking in analysis and intellectual rigour while making recommendations outside of its remit, ostensibly agreeing with Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller, who called the document a "whitewash".
The PNP's lead attorney at the enquiry, K.D. Knight, said the failure of the commissioners to hold anyone culpable, given all the circumstances leading up to the capture and extradition of Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, was baffling.
"The commissioners failed miserably to carry out their functions. The recommendations were weak, very weak, extremely weak and, in some instances, irrelevant," Knight declared.
"They lacked thought and had very little to do with the terms of reference. There was no analysis of the evidence, they ignored the evidence adduced, and came to some conclusions which it is difficult to see how they did," added the attorney and senator, who appeared to have been one of the unnamed counsel whose behaviour was singled out by the commissioners as unsatisfactory.
Knight said the conclusion of "no misconduct" on the part of anyone - despite the commissioners' own definition of misconduct being "inappropriate behaviour" while calling Prime Minister Bruce Golding's action in the entire affair "inappropriate" - was incomprehensible.
He said he believed United States Ambassador Pamela Bridgewater's dismissal of Golding's testimony that US officials were harassing government officials on the issue strengthened his position that the prime minister was "pathologically mendacious", making up responses as he went along and believing his own untruths.
Irrelevant findings
Knight said the commissioners' findings on constitutional matters were irrelevant as there were no full arguments on the matter.
"They (commissioners) should disgorge every dollar they were paid, 'cause they earned not one cent of it," argued Knight, who said he supported a position by some journalists that the monies should have been used to rehabilitate some of the persons who were affected by the joint police-military operation into the community.
Patrick Atkinson, who along with Debra Martin, represented former National Security Minister Dr Peter Phillips, was visibly upset as he told journalists he had been trying to make sense of the recommendations, and the evidence, or lack of evidence which led to them.
One recommendation which has stuck in his stomach is the separation of the posts of attorney general and minister of justice.
Atkinson argued that recommendation had nothing to do with the terms of reference, which offered a heavy workload as the reason for it being suggested.
"Manatt, Phelps & Phillips is not mentioned in any of the recommendations. Nothing in any of these recommendations has anything to do whatsoever with the terms of reference," Atkinson said. "The first glaring omission was the absence of any weighing-up or evaluation of credibility of any one witness. Nobody stopped to say, was this person telling the truth … . The findings are not worth a dime. The opportunity of the public to see them, to hear them, to form their own judgment, priceless."