THE EDITOR, Sir:

An item in The Gleaner of March 3 stated that the United States (US) Department of State had been very critical of Jamaica in a report on narco-trafficking in the Caribbean. The report refers to, among other things, "an increase in murder and other violent crime coupled with a thriving 'guns-for-ganja' trade between Jamaica and its neighbours that was abetted by systemic corruption within the police, customs service and judicial system ... "

It has become fashionable to criticise the judicial system, which includes judges and the courts, for being corrupt without offering any evidence. A special task force on crime commissioned by the Jamaica Labour Party, which was then in Opposition, headed by Colonel Trevor MacMillan, released a report to the public in May 2006 which stated: "There is general consensus that Jamaica suffers from endemic corruption ... and that this has become institutionalised in the police force, is evident in the Department of Corrections and even in the judiciary."

A member of the task force, Anthony Harriott, criminologist and academic, in an article in the The Sunday Gleaner of June 11, 2006, sought to justify the statement by referring to a report in The Gleaner of October 25, 2001, in which the then minister of national security and justice, K.D. Knight, is alleged to have told his audience that "the drug dealers have used their enormous wealth to reach the police, government officials and also the judiciary".

The then attorney general and minister of justice, A.J. Nicholson, who had objected to the statement by the task force from the time the report was released, in responding to Mr Harriott, admitted that Mr Knight had made the statement, but sought to interpret it in a different way from Mr Harriott - The Sunday Gleaner, June 25, 2006. However, in a letter published in your newspaper three days later, Mr Knight stated "emphatically" that he had "never ever said that the judiciary was reached by drug dealers". He went on to reiterate his confidence in the impeccable integrity of our judiciary and entreated others to share that confidence.

Now, the US without presenting one jot or tittle of evidence has alleged "systemic corruption" in the Jamaican "judicial system" and the Government, the Opposition, the bloggers and the chattering classes are silent. Why? I am not surprised. We treat ourselves and our institutions with contempt and so invite others to do likewise. I take strong exception to this gratuitous and wholly unsubstantiated accusation.

I am, etc.,

BERESFORD HAY

PO Box 1191

Kingston 8