- File photos
At right, Nicholson...Whatever we said we will stand by it. Left, Chuck...PNP has shown nothing to suggest that it would resume hanging.
Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer
JUSTICE MINISTER A. J. Nicholson says Government intends to honour a pre-election promise and resume hanging, but not until they and the Opposition find common ground concerning amendments to the Constitution.
"Whatever we said we will stand by it but we cannot go forward without the support of the Opposition," said Mr. Nicholson. He stated that differences between the Government and the Jamaica Labour Party on the Charter of Rights is a major obstacle to making the necessary amendments to the Constitution.
But Delroy Chuck, the JLP's Spokesperson on Justice, scoffed at Nicholson's statement. He claims the PNP has shown nothing to suggest that it would resume hanging since it was elected to government in 1989.
"I've been hearing K. D. Knight (former Security and Justice Minister) since the early 1990s say that he's going to keep the hangman busy but there has not been one hanging under this Government," Mr. Chuck countered. "The last hangings in Jamaica took place under a JLP Government. Fundamentally, they (the Government) don't have the guts to do it."
PRATT/MORGAN RULING
Mr. Nicholson says amending sections of the Constitution would overturn the 1993 Pratt/Morgan ruling by the Privy Council in England. That prevents prisoners who have been on Death Row for more than five years from being hanged; more than 250 prisoners on Death Row in the Caribbean have since had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.
In February, Mr. Nicholson and Mr. Chuck clashed in Parliament over the Bill on the Charter of Rights. Mr. Chuck said the document should be withdrawn or revised because it contained laws that "infringed upon people's rights".
Mr. Nicholson disagreed, challenging Mr. Chuck to substantiate his claims. He charged that the Opposition Spokesman was being difficult.
The Justice Minister says Barbados have made amendments to its Constitution, opening the way for a return to hanging. He pointed to co-operation between rival parliamentarians as a key factor in that process.
"They work together, we don't," he said.
The Joint Select Committee on the Charter of Rights last met in March. Mr. Nicholson was unable to say when they would next meet.
PNP'S 2002 MANIFESTO
The resumption of hanging was a focal point of the People's National Party's 2002 election manifesto. It stated that if the party was re-elected to power, it would definitely use hanging as a means to stem the wave of murders in Jamaica.
At the time, Amnesty Inter-national and local human rights advocates including Dr. Lloyd Barnett said the gesture was merely an election ploy. However, Prime Minister P.J. Patterson defended his administration, saying that the Government was acceding to the majority of Jamaicans who support a return to hanging.
"The Jamaican people are substantially agreed to the need to resume the death penalty. We intend to heed the voice of the people," said Mr. Patterson.
Two murder convicts who were hanged at the St. Catherine District Prison in 1988 were the last persons to die at the gallows in Jamaica. At present, there are more than 50 persons on Death Row.
Citing a crime rate out of control, Trinidad and Tobago resumed hanging back in 1999 with nine persons going to the gallows in June that year. Carolyn Gomes, convenor of human rights group Jamaicans for Justice, says they are against the Jamaican Government following suit. She says there is no evidence that hanging curbs crime.
