Hylton Dennis | The elusive search for justice

The Equal Rights and Justice anthem of Peter Tosh echoed in my mind last week, again, as I heard in a newscast that defence attorney Valerie Neita-Robertson QC vilified the Independent Investigative Commission (INDECOM) for bringing murder charges against policemen in the so called 'Clarendon Death Squad' trial.

Robertson also asked the director of public prosecutions (DPP) to review all of the INDECOM cases.

I wondered why she went so far against the commission, publicly arguing that the abortion of the police men's trial - because of the death of a key witness compromised the prosecution's chance of succeeding, not their exoneration nor acquittal - was proof that the body conducts its investigations poorly and brings frivolous charges. This is a claim that has been made repeatedly against the police as well.

INDECOM is among the best gifts ever presented by the Government to the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF).

The JCF has been vilified even more than INDECOM and has been labelled so disreputable that after 150 years of existence it needs to be completely dismantled, not disbanded, reconfigured and rebranded.

When a trained, professional enlisted constable or a gazetted member of the JCF is acquitted in a fair trial by the court of a charge brought by INDECOM, it shows that the cop is exemplary and worthy of her/his badge or rank status.

The conduct of the investigation that the charge is based on is irrelevant if the defence counsel, be it Neita-Robertson, or any other officer of the court, verily believes it dispenses justice manifestly. That she makes the investigation conducted by the commission the pivot of her argument against it, therefore, is at the very least a disingenuous juxtaposition.

The mountain of historical evidence in Jamaica of charges being laid by the police against criminal suspects without adequate or completed investigation has not stopped even the DPP from proceeding to trial.

So why should INDECOM be the exception to this 'unjust' norm? The answer, in a single word, must be hypocrisy, or in a whole sentence, because of the media's endorsement of it.

Numerous investigative commissions of Parliament have been established after overwhelming public outcry about irregularities and injustice experienced in different spheres of engagement with servants of the State or public life in general, INDECOM being one of them.

Others include the Office of the Public Defender, Office of the Children's Advocate, the former Office of the Contractor General now merged with the omnibus Integrity Commission, the Financial Services Commission, the Fair Trading Commission, and the Consumer Affairs Commission, to name only a few.

 

'We Want Justice'

 

Out of so many is supposed to come one sufficient response to what had become the theme or mantra of protesting Jamaicans in every corner of the society, "we want justice". Yet they have no more of it now than they had before these commissions came into existence.

Why, with all the massive public expenditure on commissions to secure justice for Jamaicans, does justice continue to elude them? The answer, again, in a single word, is hypocrisy.

Although 'Equal Rights and Justice' is the political rallying cry of the Jamaica Labour Party, now in charge of the affairs of the state, it is not the national political mood nor attitude.

The electoral politics of Jamaica thrives on disadvantage, hostility, and division, epitomised by Neita-Robertson's attack on INDECOM and her confidence that the Office of the DPP can be swayed, because of its much-publicised rivalry with the Commission over who should conduct prosecutions, to give her its support.

We can only breathe a collective sigh of relief that she did not extend her pungent request to the chief justice.

It stinks to high heavens that the Minister of Justice is among those who have railed against INDECOM, just as he did against the former Office of the Contractor General and joined those in voting for its demise, in favour of what is likely to be a lower impact unwieldy power stacked Integrity Commission.

What it proves is that the "justice" commissions were established with a grudge against the people of Jamaica by their Parliament.

The practice of electoral state politics in Jamaica is exclusively optics meaning things are not as they seem. It is completely devoid of altruism. Narcissism is the prevailing ethos which explains why opponents can easily justify trading charges of cronyism and nepotism against each other for these are their fortresses, flattered by their own conceit. Condescension and inconvenience round out the plot.

If INDECOM, like the former Office of the Contractor General, is too exuberant in believing the lie that it is intended to change the status quo by curtailing injustice, it might become similarly expedient to order its merger with the Office of the DPP.

- Hylton W. Dennis is a publisher and a former vice-president of the Press Association of Jamaica. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and denscriptions@yahoo.com.