Anthony Harriott, Contributor
KNIGHT
IN A paper entitled 'Jamaica: Government and Politics', which was written in 1986, the late Professor, the Hon. Carl Stone criticised "the criminal justice systems corrupt practice of bribing juries and rendering corrupt judgments in favour of those who have political or economic power".
This is a strong statement about how power operates in the country and our failure to ensure that it is disciplined by the formal structural arrangements within the state and especially that the political administration does not overreach its legal authority and distort the system of justice.
Later, Stone was to do a number of surveys of public opinion in which he measured the attitudes of the public to the various institutions of the criminal justice system including the judiciary.
SURVEY REVEALS
Reporting on a survey that was done in 1991, which was sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), he wrote "The current survey reveals a trend towards increased negative opinions of both the courts and the legal profession. The courts are criticised by majority opinion for not protecting the interests of the poor adequately. Many express doubts about the incorruptibility of the courts." In response to the question, 'On the whole, are the judges free of corruption?' some 70 per cent of males and 62 per cent of females in the sample said 'no'. The data, however, also indicated that despite this, the courts were held in high regard relative to the other institutions of the criminal justice system and that our judges were viewed as being competent. Aspects of this report were presented in Stone's Gleaner column.
Some 10 years later in 2000, a study of the 'justice sector' in the Caribbean was prepared under the auspices of the Caribbean Group for Cooperation in Economic Development and other international bodies including the Inter-American Development Bank. It is entitled 'Challenges of Capacity Development Towards Sustainable Reforms of the Caribbean Justice Sectors'. With regard to Jamaica, they noted: "People know that courts suffer from delays, and people also fear the courts, their connection to the police, and the overall complexity of the legal system. Many citizens understand that it is not possible for one or more elements of a somewhat integrated system to be corrupt and for the other elements to indefinitely remain unaffected and insulated from the corrupt elements that they interact with on a daily basis.
In normal conditions, one would expect the component parts of a system to be subject to reciprocal influences. A system is by definition something that pursues common goals; it may have built-in checks and balances, but at times also acts in concert. The researchers, who were from the University of Maryland, did a survey of households and enterprises across the Caribbean. They asked respondents to rate the justice sector in their respective countries in terms of fairness and integrity. On these issues Jamaica placed third from the bottom above Haiti and the Dominican Republic and below St. Vincent, Barbados, The Bahamas, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and St. Lucia.
SEEKING INFORMATION
Perhaps these perceptions of the general public have absolutely nothing to do with the realities and with the experiences of the people and should be dismissed.
Alternatively, maybe they should be treated seriously by the responsible authorities who may find ways of getting to the actual state of the system. One way of doing this is via task forces that are able to seek out the information from key actors within the system and from members of the public who have had direct experiences with it. However, there is ample evidence to suggest some of our top state officials, at least in the recent past, were well aware of the realities. For example, in October 2001, while delivering a speech to business leaders in Ocho Rios, the then Minister of National Security and Justice, Hon. K.D. Knight reportedly argued that that drug dealers had corrupted "every aspect of society" including some of the highest branches of the state.
According to the report in The Gleaner of October 25, 2001, he told his audience that "the drug dealers have used their enormous wealth to reach the police, government officials, and also the judiciary."
The then Minister of National Security and Justice must have based his view on evidence that was available to him. One would expect that much of this still remains out of the public domain. There are, however, relevant events that have been reported in the press. An example of this was the murder of a former acting registrar of the Supreme Court and judge in the Resident Magistrate's Court. He was a fine human being and a man of great integrity, and in honour of his memory, I believe that his name should be known. It is Derrick Hugh. In 1988, some three years after Stone's paper, he was killed at his East Kingston home for resisting corrupt pressures on the courts I am told.
One Trevor Bennett was found guilty of the crime and sentenced to death. There were, however, at least two killers/conspirators. Bennett told the court that he was invited to go on a robbery. However, on entering Mr. Hugh's house his co-conspirator, one Lukie, instead of keeping his focus on money, immediately broadened his interests. His demand of Mr. Hugh was, "Wey di book?" (translated: give me the files). Lukie was never brought to justice and to my knowledge there were no mobilisations for special measures to be taken to ensure this. I cannot recall any mobilisation of the resident magistrates, justices of the peace and the Bar Council. Neither can I recall any calls for investigative help from Scotland Yard.
JUDGES WITH INTEGRITY
This murder certainly shows that there are judges of great integrity, but it also shows that the corrupting (and intimidating) pressures on them are real and have existed for some time. Mr. Hugh lost his life resisting these pressures. In this sense, he was a victim of corruption in the courts.
It is against the backcloth of all of these developments and pronouncements, and its own work, that the recent report of the Macmillan-led Special Task Force on Crime (STFC) of which I was a member, states that, "There is general consensus that Jamaica suffers from endemic corruption and that this has been spreading throughout the system is institutionalised in the police force, and is evident in the Department of Corrections, and even in the judiciary."
The above quote from the report of the STFC represents the evidence that was available to it. It certainly reflects the experience and judgments made from various vantage points within the system of the very responsible persons who spoke freely with us.
In this quote, the STFC makes a number of claims about corruption in the society, the criminal justice system, and its component parts, namely, the police, corrections and the courts/judiciary. It tries to describe the differences in the degree and character of corruption in each unit. It claims that corruption is endemic or widespread in the society. Many citizens have experience of this in everyday life especially how it has become part of the work norms in so many institutions. For example, I recently had the not uncommon experience of being asked by a group of workers to personally pay them to do their job for which they were already receiving their salaries.
In the teaching profession, there is now a booming extra-lesson business. There are some corrupt aspects to it. When corruption becomes widespread in a society, it is likely to eventually touch its key institutions.
With respect to the judiciary, we simply claim that it has been touched, or, that corruption is 'even' 'evident' there; not that it is institutionalised.
Next week: Increasing
Judicial independence.
