Stonewalled

The Office of the Public Defender (OPD) on Tuesday told a parliamentary committee that requests it had made for data on states of emergencies (SOEs) since 2021 were flatly rejected by the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF). The police, it said, instead sought to school the commission on why it would not provide the information.

Appearing before the Internal and External Affairs Committee of Parliament on Tuesday, Public Defender Carolyn Reid-Cameron, KC, and her deputy, Herbert McKenzie, stunned lawmakers when they disclosed that the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s (JCF) Legal Affairs and other divisions had refused to hand over raw data requested relating to persons detained during SOEs.

Police Commissioner Major General Antony Anderson, who also appeared before the committee, struggled to come to grips with the revelation, charging that “at no point did the JCF withhold information requested by the committee and from the public defender’s office”.

“This is data we capture, and largely, we turn it over. As a matter of fact, there was a point when it was automatic. If it has stuck somewhere in my organisation, it is unfortunate that nobody reached out to me … so we can supply this data to the committee and to the public defender’s office,” he added.

Fitz Jackson, who said he was alarmed at the development, noted that the information was not “stuck” in the JCF but that personnel in the force had denied access to the OPD.

Reid-Cameron and McKenzie were invited by the Internal and External Affairs Committee of Parliament to provide analyses from statistics and other material garnered from previous SOEs.

“The office, in the past, has kept track of detainees and their information such as their duration of detention, age ranges, gender, and reasons given for detention,” she said.

Reid-Cameron explained that the OPD placed heavy reliance on preparing the analyses on the raw data obtained from the JCF.

She said that her office was unable to get that data from the JCF despite the efforts of the previous public defender, Arlene Harrison Henry, and McKenzie.

She labelled the situation as unfortunate, noting that this has prevented the OPD from being able to assist the committee.

From as far back as 2021, the OPD and the Legal Affairs Department of the JCF as well as the superintendent of police for Central Kingston have exchanged missives on the SOEs data stalemate.

“I was struck. What was so egregious in that set of information that the Parliament requested from the JCF?” Jackson questioned.

McKenzie told the committee that it appeared that some subgroups within the JCF were operating on “a frolic of their own”.

The police commissioner made it clear, however, that he did not have a challenge giving the OPD information requested.

editorial@gleanerjm.com