Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterTHE JUDICIAL Review Court yesterday threw out the application for leave to go to another court to apply for an order to quash the jury's verdict in the case of the policeman who was freed of manslaughter arising from the death of 13-year-old Janice Allen.
"I am of the view that the acquittal of Constable Rohan Allen is not open to judicial review and cannot be quashed by judicial review," Miss Justice Gloria Smith said as she delivered the majority decision.
Millicent Forbes, mother of the deceased who had brought the application wept when she heard the ruling. She said the ruling had left her very sad.
Forbes is being supported by the lobby group Jamaicans for Justice.
Attorney-at-law Richard Small who represented Miss Forbes said he was going to appeal the ruling.
Mr. Small said he was not going to say that the atrocious conduct was without remedy or that the court was impotent to correct it.
On Monday, Mr. Small in renewing the application for leave to go to the Judicial Review Court had asked the court to use its inherent jurisdiction and grant leave. He said the verdict was obtained by fraud and misrepresentation.
CONSTABLED FREED
Constable Allen ( no relation to the deceased) was freed in March last year after a prosecutor offered no evidence in the manslaughter case. The prosecutor said he received information that a policeman who was a vital witness in the case was off the island. The judge directed the jury to return a formal verdict of not guilty.
It later turned out that the information was false.
Allen was shot dead at her gate in Trench Town, Kingston in April 2000. The police reported that she was shot in cross fire between the police and gunmen. Alleged eyewitnesses contradicted the report.
Miss Justice Smith and Mr. Justice Mahadev Dukharan said that to grant an application for judicial review, the court must be guided by certain principles. The judges said that the Civil Procedure Rules did not assist them. Mr. Justice Roy Jones dissented.
The court said it based its ruling on what Kent Pantry, Q.C., Director of Public Prosecutions had said in his affidavit that based on his investigations into what had transpired when Constable Allen was freed, there was no evidence upon which anyone could be charged.
