Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter

Nancy Anderson (centre), legal officer at the Independent Jamaican Council for Human Rights (IJCHR) and Arlene Harrison-Henry (right), chairperson, IJCHR, welcome Jason McCauseland of St. Andrew Technical High School, third place winner in the IJCHR essay competition on the World Day Against the Death Penalty. The other winners of the competition are Xaiver Campbell of Campion College who took first place and Karique Smith of Cornwall College who placed second. The winners were announced at a press conference at the Jamaica Conference centre, downtown Kingston, yesterday. - Norman Grindley/Deputy Chief Photographer

Police abuses and extra-judicial killings remain the number one most reported case of human rights abuse by Jamaicans, says the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights (IJCHR).

"I don't think that we have had a good history, I think that we have had way too many extra-judicial killings," Arlene Harrison-Henry, chairperson of the IJCHR told The Gleaner shortly after addressing a press conference yesterday in observation of Human Rights Day.

"I think that several other services such as effective and adequate legal aid needs to be bolstered so that poverty or economic circumstances are not the ultimate determinant of the quality of representation that you get," she added.

Nancy Anderson, legal officer at the IJCHR said these reports vary from police entering persons premises without a search warrant and damaging properties, injuring someone to police killings.

While unable to give data to support this claim, Ms. Anderson said these reports outnumbered other areas. Meanwhile, checks by The Gleaner showed that up to September this year, there were 196 reported deaths from police excesses.

Addressing the problem

Ms. Anderson pointed out that IJCHR has been working closely with the Jamaica Constabulary Force to address the problem. She said currently the council was in the process of developing a 45-hour course for police recruits at the Police Academy at Twickenham Park, St. Catherine.

"We have been working closely with the police, we have a manual, which looks at the different areas of police training such as use of firearms, search technique and looks at it in the human rights aspects," she said.

Ms. Anderson tried to dispel the notion that the human rights lobby group was only focused on representing criminals.

"They are not about representation of criminals or people on death row, that's not it, "she said. "That's only one very small part of the council's work."

The legal officer said the council also focuses on education, advocacy and legal reforms.

"We do take matters to court, we do represent people. Most of our work is civil cases, not criminal matters. We deal with people who have suffered abuses at the hand of authorities, we take their cases to court or ask for redress, injury or damage," she said.

Ms. Anderson said the Council currently has a client caseload of some 85 civil cases.

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com