THE FARQUHARSON Institute of Public Affairs (FIPA) and three lobby groups, citing "a growing loss of confidence" in the operations of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), have sent a letter to Prime Minister P.J. Patterson calling for the introduction of legislation, requiring the DPP to make an annual report to Parliament.
According to the groups, the annual report should specify the date when all cases and matters were referred to the DPP, the date on which a ruling was made, the reasons for such rulings and the length of time it took to arrive at each decision.
NEED FOR NEW LEGISLATION
"It is our joint belief that such legislation would begin to open up the process of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and, by so doing, to re-establish public confidence in its action," the letter stated, which was signed by Frank Phipps, Q.C., chairman of the FIPA; Dr. Carolyn Gomes, executive director of Jamaicans for Justice; Yvonne Sobers, chairman of Families Against State Terrorism and Dr. Aub Martin, a member of Transparency International (Ja).
The groups also said in the letter, which was written on Tuesday, that they viewed with "deep and increasing concern" the performance of the Office of the DPP.
"It is a general consensus of an expanding number of Jamaicans that the current actions of this office appear to be arbitrary, capricious and lacking in transparency," the letter stated.
The group said the refusal to release the Muirhead Committee's report into the administrative functions of the Office of the DPP had only served to reinforce the "growing loss of confidence in the working" of the Office of the DPP.
