Lightbourne
Edmond Campbell, News Coordinator
With police killings numbering 272 last year and 16 for the month of January 2008, the Government is pushing, early in the new legislative year, to introduce legislation to establish an independent authority to investigate killings by state agents.
Legislation to set up a special coroner's office to carry out inquests into killings by the security forces will also be among the priority measures to be brought to Parliament in the 2008/2009 legislative year.
A new study titled 'Killing Impunity: Fatal Police Shootings and Extra-judicial Executions in Jamaica' said the country was facing a full-scale humanitarian crisis.
Over 700 shot
Co-authored by the George Washington University Law School, Washington, D.C., and Jamaicans For Justice, the report said more than 700 civilians have been shot and killed by the police in Jamaica since 2004.
Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Dorothy Lightbourne, told The Sunday Gleaner that these two pieces of legislation have been drafted and will be examined in the near future by the legislative committee of Cabinet.
"When there are killings by agents of the State, it takes an awfully long time for the coroner's inquest to be held, so Cabinet gave permission for an office of a special coroner to be set up," she said in a Sunday Gleaner interview.
edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com
Special facts
According to Lightbourne, "These coroners will go islandwide wherever there are killings by the police and quickly hold the inquest." Legislation to facilitate the appointment of a special prosecutor to fight corruption in both the public and private sectors is almost ready. The justice minister said the draft legislation would be examined by the legislative committee of Cabinet and is to be tabled in Parliament shortly. At the same time, a green paper on the proposed whistle-blower legislation will be tabled in the 2008/2009 parliamentary year. Lightbourne said the whistle-blower legislation would be given priority by the current administration.
