ATTORNEY-GENERAL A. J. Nicholson has said that it is quite inappropriate to launch an enquiry into each of the departments involved in the administration of justice merely on the basis of general concerns.
He was responding Tuesday to a letter from Frank Phipps, Q.C., chairman of the Farquharson Institute of Public Affairs (FIPA) to Prime Minister P. J. Patterson earlier this month.
The Institute had expressed regret that probes were not being ordered into the Attorney-General's Office and other departments in the government legal service, in addition to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
The Institute had said it welcomed the special panel to probe the administration in the Office of the DPP and hoped that the appointment of David Muirhead, Q.C., as chairman of the panel, was a first step towards a general review of the administration of justice in Jamaica.
Mr. Nicholson said he noted that the Institute had called for an enquiry into all aspects of the administration of justice. He said it should constantly be borne in mind that, under the Constitution, different bodies were entrusted with the responsibility to oversee particular aspects of the administration of justice. He said too that different procedures had been established for addressing or investigating particular concerns.
He said based on the material before it, the Public Service Commission decided to enquire into the administration of one of the departments for which it was responsible.
"It would, however, be quite inappropriate to launch an enquiry into each of the department involved in the administration of justice, merely on the basis of general concerns. Separate and apart from the cost of such enquiries and the effect on the operations of the entity itself, these are clearly not exercises that should be embarked upon lightly," Mr. Nicholson said.
He said further that "the Prime Minister and I have not been advised by the Public Service Commission that they share the Institute's understanding "that many of the problems in the DPP's Office also exist in the Attorney-General's Office."
He also added that the Institute's observations in relation to systems in governance may impact on the advancement of the process of Constitutional Reform and he intended to bring them to the attention of the relevant committee.
The Institute had written to the Prime Minister on November 28 calling for a probe into the general administration of justice and the performance of the Office of the DPP. Kent Pantry, Q.C. is the Director of Public Prosecutions.
On November 29, the Ministry of Justice announced that the Public Service Commission had ordered a probe into the operations of the Office of the DPP. The three-member panel consisting of Mr. Muirhead, Beryl Singh, retired Chief Personnel Officer of the Services Commission and Novar McDonald, chairman of the Disputes Resolution Foundation, began sitting since last week Tuesday.
Prosecutors in the Office of the DPP have been making numerous complaints over the past two years, chief of which is that some of them have been acting in clear vacancies for more than a year.
