News

Nadisha Hunter, Gleaner Writer

Attorney-at-law Jacqueline Samuels-Brown has vigorously criticised the proposed anti-crime bills before Parliament, arguing that some provisions - if passed - would jeopardise fundamental rights and freedoms.

Among the concerns Samuels-Brown raised on Tuesday, when she was awarded The Gleaner's Silver Pen for March, was the contentious proposal allowing for the detention of criminal suspects for 60 days without bail.

She insisted that the palliative for chronic crime in Jamaica was not the curtailing of rights, but rather, the strengthening of investigative capacity within the police force.

"My fear is that if we get back to the practices that prevailed during the period when we had the Suppression of Crimes Act, it will help to cement bad practices within the police force," said Samuels-Brown.

"In Jamaica, we have a fundamental principle of constitutional law which says that you have a separation of functions. I, as an attorney representing one side, could not be the judge in the case ... so anything in the crime bills that takes away the powers from the judiciary and places it in the hands of a partisan group - be it the police or the DPP (director of public prosecutions) - ought to be scrapped," she told The Gleaner.

Reservations

Her reservations about judicial independence are tied to a proposal to impose a minimum sentence of 15 years on persons found guilty of major crimes such as murder or drug trafficking.

Those sentiments coincide with criticism from some parliamentarians across the political divide, among them government backbencher Clive Mullings and opposition spokesman for National Security Peter Bunting.

Debate on the bills was suspended Tuesday and plans for a bipartisan caucus set in train to arrive at a passable redraft.

While acknowledging that the state of emergency in force in Kingston and St Andrew granted the security forces greater powers in their hunt for illegal guns, Samuels-Brown said dynamic measures were key to solving endemic problems.

"It's a matter of how we move out of this state of emergency to a state of permanency, that takes into account not only people's rights but also their welfare and safety, that is what is going to be the challenge," she added.

The attorney-at-law also expressed alarm at the Kirkland Heights killing of 63-year-old Keith Clarke, who was showered with more than a dozen bullets in a military operation on May 27. That raid occurred three days after militants defending reputed drug lord Christopher Coke triggered a military incursion into Tivoli Gardens.

Samuels-Brown was honoured with the Silver Pen award for a letter to the editor captioned 'Fundamental issues of principle' published on March 9.

Said she in her letter: "What is needed is not new anti-crime laws. What is needed is an ethos whereby politicians declare and then rid themselves of affiliations that will forever cloud fundamental issues of principle from which all our citizens stand to benefit and which enhance national pride."

nadisha.hunter@gleanerjm.com