THE DECLARATION before the court by the Deputy Solicitor General, Mr Patrick Foster, that the Government is planning legislation that will give the court the power to directly squash verdicts which have been obtained by fraud, misrepresentation, intimidation and other such circumstances, has our support.
The initiative most likely, will also be endorsed by the widest cross section of Jamaicans. But it does smack of an insensitive, uncaring administration, choosing the act only when its back is against the wall. That, at least, is the perception.
All this, however, does not purport to be a declaration on the law as it relates to the Janice Allen case and a suggestion to the Court of Appeal as to how it should rule in the case now before it.
Indeed lawyers for the family and Janice Allen suggest that the court already has powers being proposed by the Deputy Solicitor General, if it chooses to use it.
Recall the context of the Janice Allen case. She was a 13-year-old child in 2000 when she was killed by a policeman's bullets. The police at the time claimed that Ms. Allen was killed in a cross fire while they traded gunfire with criminals. Ms. Allen's family and their supporters say that the child was a victim of wanton police behaviour and negligence.
More than two years ago at the trial for the policeman who was eventually charged with murder for Janice Allen's death, it emerged that important documents could not be found and, more critically, that the court had been misled, perhaps deliberately, about the availability of a police witness. This policeman was acquitted, on the face of it, by corrupt means.
This matter was so serious that it caused the then Commissioner of Police to order an internal investigation in the circumstance under which wrong information was fed to the court and for the Director of Public Prosecutions to publicly raise issue about the conduct of the case by one of his staff.
Clearly, there was a heavy stench emerging from the case. But the court, presided over by Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe, held that it had no power to overturn the acquittal, although it suggested that other remedies and prosecution might be sought.
What is surprising is that in all this time the administration has not declared an official policy on the Janice Allen verdict and left it up to a legal officer of the Crown to inform the public, tangentially through the court, of the intention of the Cabinet and of the people's Parliament. We cannot comment on the soundness of Mr. Foster's information and are certain that it will have no impact on the finding of the court. It is immaterial to the deliberations of the justices.
In the event that ought not to be forum for what should have been an important policy statement by a caring government - one that should have been made two years go. And they wonder why people are sceptical.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
