Gomes, left, and Dunstan
Trudy Simpson, Freelance Writer
HUMAN RIGHTS lobby group, Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ), has called on the Government to develop and enact a Whistleblower Protection Act to encourage more witnesses to corruption and other wrongdoings to come forward.
The call came yesterday at a Gleaner Editors' Forum at the company's North Street offices, central Kingston.
Dr. Carolyn Gomes, executive director of JFJ, and Cheryl-Ann Dunstan, a JFJ director, said the law is needed to protect persons who would risk their jobs and lives to reveal wrong doing such as a top official's abuse of his position or corruption within an organisation.
Locally, she said, whistleblowers were labelled 'informers' and faced a hard time.
"The Whistleblowers Act is giving people who have access to sensitive information the confidence to come forward. Although they may seem like traitors to the companies, this is for the greater good," Ms. Dunstan said.
The Act, Ms. Dunstan ex-plained, should have provisions seeking to ensure, among other things, that:
There is no intimidation or the loss of a job for someone who provides a reporter or other authority with sensitive information that shows clear wrongdoing.
Would allow the state to prosecute an employer who attempts to intimidate a potential witness.
Would take steps to ensure that the identity of the potential witness would be protected from the public at least until the actual trial.
Seeks to provide financial and other assistance to potential witnesses if they are suspended from their jobs to deal with a particular case.
Ms. Dunstan said the Act would support the Corruption Prevention Act, which she noted does not cover cases which include the abuse of one's office such as "using it to get a contract awarded for a friend."
She further noted that the Act does not cover instances such as officials, including the police, tampering with evidence.
Nancy Anderson, an attorney-at-law, and legal officer at the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights (IJCHR), welcomed the recommendation but said yesterday that her organisation and JFJ would need to discuss the issue more before deciding whether the IJCHR would lobby for the enactment, implementation and enforcement of the Act.
WHISTLEBLOWERS
Among local cases which involved whistleblowers is that of Police Constable Dwight Roper, who was ordered by the Court of Appeal to serve a nine month prison sentence in July 2002 for accepting $1,000 from a motorist to withdraw a traffic ticket.
In 2002, another policeman was convicted under the Corruption Prevention Act after he accepted $300 from a handcart man who was involved in a fight with another man. He took the money while assuring the handcart man that he would not press charges against him.
In early 2003, another whistleblower, Kay Osborne, brought public attention to abuses and other wrong doings in several state-run children's homes and places of safety. This triggered a Government probe, which confirmed some of the abuses and Government promises of changes in the system.
