By Angelo Laurence, Gleaner WriterMANDEVILLE:
REVEREND OLIVER Daley, Minister of the Ridgemount United Church in Mandeville is contending that the country's justice system is a significant contributor to the society's inability to settle disputes amicably.
The justice system, Rev. Daley said, needs to pay more attention to the fact that "we do not trust anyone anymore and have lost our ability to make peace." This, he said, is reflected "in our homes where we kill one another". He argued that if we could not depend on the present justice system to give us 'swift and effective justice' in a way that is 'timely and responsible' then we were going to 'perish'.
Reverend Daley who was recently addressing members of the Retired Nurses Association in Mandeville lamented that the justice system left members of the community to settle their disputes themselves which often times 'worsens the dispute'.
He noted that landlords, who many times build a little dwelling to have an income in their older years were, forced to do illegal things in order to get justice, such as taking off a door or removing the roof of a house. The best way to break down a society, the clergyman declared was to "let people feel the only way to get justice is to get jungle justice" .
According to Daley if our legal justice system was functioning efficiently, we would not have as many 'mob killings' and so many people would not end up killing one another in their homes. He said his dream is that our society will have a justice system "that brings justice efficiently, effectively and quickly".
Daley, who is also a radio family counsellor, said the Jamaican society was going through a situation where there was no structure to the family which also contributed to the break down . In times past he said even if a man and woman were not married there was a structure to the family unlike the present where dysfunctional homes are producing non-functional children. Parents, he said, will have to be taught how to parent as it is now common to see seventeen and eighteen year olds becoming fathers and mothers.
