NOBODY IN Jamaica can be entirely satisfied with the quality of human rights in Jamaica, particularly its application by the law enforcement agencies of the State and the inevitable contamination of a judicial process that is not only slow, but stacked against the poor.
We, however, do not believe that Jamaican institutions are inherently bad, or wholly so, that there is no capacity to change or that there is no effort at improvement. Which is why we have problems with Amnesty International in its latest report on the state of human rights in Jamaica.
There is a certain predictability, a sense that Amnesty begins with an a priori position that is bereft of context or nuance and deliberately ignorant of efforts at change and improvement. Amnesty is within its right to be concerned at the high level of police homicides in Jamaica - 168 last year. Indeed, it is a concern shared by many Jamaicans, although it is debatable what proportion of them will reflexively come to the position that police homicides are inherently extra-judicial. Such a posture presumes guilt on the part of the police anytime they are accused of a killing and gives no, or insufficient weight to a statistic acknowledged by Amnesty: the fact of 1,647 murders in Jamaica last year, or a murder rate of over 60 per 100,000 population, perhaps the highest in the world for a country which is not at war and where there is no serious civil conflict. The fact is that there is serious criminal violence in Jamaica and policing is a particularly difficult job, as the Englishmen who have been recruited to posts near the top of the police force will, we are sure, inform Amnesty.
It may be true that police homicides are not adequately investigated and perhaps too, sometimes poorly prosecuted. These, if so, are issues to be dealt with. It is difficult, though, to make that claim in the Kraal case, cited by Amnesty, which was primarily investigated by officers from the United Kingdom. That a jury acquitted the policemen accused of murder could, in our view, hardly be blamed on the investigators or presentation of the case, as has been done in some quarters.
We do not believe, either, that Amnesty's review, gives sufficient credit to the hiring, so far, of three Scotland Yard officers to posts of deputy commissioner and assistant commissioner in the Jamaica Constabulary Force. This, at the very least, recognises that there are problems and suggests an intention to address them.
The bottom line is that while there are issues about the respect for people's rights that have to be addressed in Jamaica and are worthwhile highlighting, we believe that there must be a fuller context to the discourse. It is hardly useful to be dismissive of efforts at improvement and to cast those who face the daily challenges of security in Jamaica as the barbarian hordes charging in from the Steppes of who knows where.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
