Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter
THE INDEPENDENT Jamaican Council for Human Rights (IJCHR) and the Access to Information (ATI) Stakeholders Advisory Committee have called for a secretariat to be set up for the tribunal.
The groups made the recommendation as part of their submission to the Joint Select Committee of Parliament on the ATI yesterday. The committee is hearing submissions from the public on the strengths and weaknesses of the Act.
Nancy Anderson, executive director of the IJCHR, said a Secretariat needs to be established to prevent the many delays in appeals being made to the tribunal.
"Nowhere in the Act or the Schedule is there reference to the establishment of a secretariat for the tribunal and this vacuum has caused many delays in the acknowledgement of appeals," she said.
Meanwhile Dr. Carolyn Gomes, Chairman of the ATI Advisory Committee, suggested the ATI Unit be relocated from the Office of the Prime Minister and designated the secretariat for the tribunal.
Dr. Gomes also complained that the ATI Unit was understaffed and could not carry out its responsibilities effectively with a staff complement of three.
"Opportunities, for public education for example, were lost to the Unit simply because of not having enough hands to do the work," she said.
"...We recommend to the Committee that, as a matter of urgency, the staff complement of the Unit be expanded and the posts be filled if the gains to this point in democracy and accountability governance are not to be allowed to falter," she said.
