John Myers Jr., Staff Reporter
KENT PANTRY Q.C., the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), has threatened to prosecute media practitioners and entities which continue to entertain discussions on court proceedings in the public.
The DPP, who was speaking at a meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Spanish Town on Thursday night at the St. Jago Health Centre in Spanish Town, St. Catherine, blasted the media and human rights groups and warned that he will be "monitoring the programmes to ensure that the law is not breached."
"If the (radio) stations or their hosts allow or entertain callers in breaching the law, action will be taken against the stations, talk-show hosts or anyone who can be identified accordingly," Pantry said.
Noting that "the media and human rights groups have on several occasions made statements and have been commenting on the evidence in cases which are pending before the courts," Pantry charged that such comments had "the effect of influencing potential jurors and put to them material which may not be evidence in the cases."
FELLOW LAWYERS
The chief prosecutor also reprimanded fellow lawyers who, he said, on many occasions, had misled the public as to the powers and functions of his office. He also pointed to what he described as a recent trend for lawyers to hold press conferences where they comment on the state of evidence in court trials. "I consider this most improper. Cases are not tried at press conferences."
Commenting on frequent criticisms from the public about the inordinately long time it takes for him to rule on cases, Mr. Pantry said oftentimes his office was not the source of the problem. Pointing to the controversial Kraal case in which six policemen have been charged for allegedly murdering four people in the rural district in north central Clarendon on May 7 last year, the DPP said his office had not received the file from the police until October 2003.
"Up to the first two weeks in March of this year, I was still collecting statements and exhibits from police investigators from Scotland Yard," he revealed. As a result, he said a ruling could not have been made before the time it was done.
He said that in the future, if files are found to be incomplete when submitted by the police, he will be sending them back for completion.
Mr. Pantry said the increase in the country's murder rate was also affecting the speed at which files submitted are dealt with by his office, noting that they are "swamped with work."
He said the trial of the policemen implicated in the Kraal murders will not get under way until next year.
