Yvonne Chin, Staff Reporter
IN LIGHT OF a recent United Kingdom Privy Council ruling, which deems it unconstitutional that juveniles who have committed certain crimes be held at the Governor-General's Pleasure, Public Defender Howard Hamilton has expressed a willingness to spearhead the investigation of individual cases.
"My investigators will be visiting all of those people (juveniles held at the Governor-General's Pleasure) to see what exactly we can do to give assistance," said the Public Defender.
Offenders who are detained at the Governor-General's Pleasure are usually sentenced for committing capital murder as juveniles. The main feature of the sentence is that it has no definite period of incarceration attached to it.
The Privy Council, in its judgment last week ruled that offenders who fall in this category should no longer be held at the Governor-General's Pleasure but at the court's Pleasure instead. This means that the judiciary will now have responsibility for the monitoring of these offenders.
Mr. Hamilton says he has requested a list of both persons detained at the Governor General's Pleasure because of offences committed as juveniles and persons detained because they were mentally unfit to plea. He says he has been promised that he will have the list this week and intends to examine each individual case.
"What is desirable is that there is an established system that will ensure regular review of each individual's case and my office would be happy to assist in that area," Mr. Hamilton added.
Human rights activists, The Public Defender and one of the lawyers representing an offender said they were not aware of a system and if it is in place they had no knowledge of how it operates.
The Sunday Gleaner made numerous calls and faxed a list of questions to the Governor-General's Office seeking answers to these questions, but our calls were not returned, neither was our list of questions answered.
