Nicholson
Robert Hart, Parliamentary Reporter
JUSTICE MINISTER Senator A.J. Nicholson on Friday blasted the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), for suggesting that the Government does not have the "guts" to carry out the death penalty.
The Minister also stressed that the Constitution must be amended if the country intends to return to hanging.
At the same time Mr. Nicholson was rebuffed by Opposition members of the Senate as he renewed Govern-ment's call for a bi-partisan effort at what he claims is the necessary abolition of the five-year time limit on the carrying out of the death sentence.
"For years, representing the Opposition, Mr. (Delroy) Chuck has paraded, spreading the same gospel in his meanderings up and down the talk show circuit, giving interviews, writing columns, spreading their (the JLP's) mantra that the Government does not have the guts to see that the law is carried out," Mr. Nicholson, who is also the Attorney General, told the Senate yesterday.
MANDATORY DEATH SENTENCE
The Justice Minister was piloting the Offences Against the Person (Amendment) Bill which was made necessary after a recent Privy Council ruling, in the case of Lambert Watson, that the mandatory death sentence is unconstitutional and must therefore be struck from the law.
But before presenting the bill, which was subsequently passed and had already been passed in the House of Representatives, the Attorney-General took the opportunity to reiterate concerns with what he claimed was a false impression being created by the Opposition.
He argued that, despite its public statements, the Opposition was aware of the rulings of the Privy Council which have created constraints to the carrying out of the death sentence, and that the Government has taken steps to abide by the strictures laid down by the Judicial committee.
The Privy Council recommended in the early 1990s that prisoners on death row for five years or more must have their sentences commuted to life, because of the strong probability that they would not be executed.
Senator Nicholson argued that there are currently 12 avenues through which a person facing charges which attract the death penalty can seek to "extricate" himself from such a sentence.
As a result, the individual, once convicted, has several opportunities to stretch out the legal processes through the filing of appeals, petitions, and complaints to the Court of Appeal, Privy Council, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the Governor-General.
Opposition Senator Dorothy Lightbourne disputed the Attorney-General's claim arguing that the five-year time frame provides enough time for all avenues to be used and for hanging to proceed.
"It's after they have gone through and you keep them lingering that you use this excuse," she said.
Senator Lightbourne, responding to the Justice Minister's claim that Opposition Leader Edward Seaga has failed for two years to respond to correspondence on the issue (from Prime Minister P.J. Patterson) said that a response had been made and that the Opposition felt that the issue should be put to the public before any attempts at amending the Constitution.
