Transcript of Speech - Lay Magistrates (St. Catherine Chapter) Banquet and Award Ceremony - August 13, 2011

TRANSCRIPT:
Minister of Justice, Hon. Delroy Chuck Address to the Lay Magistrates Association of Jamaica – St. Catherine Chapter – Banquet and Award Ceremony

Location: Arian’s Restaurant, Spanish Plaza,
Greendale Spanish Town, St. Catherine

Date & Time: August 13, 2011 @ 6: 30 p.m.

*Please note that there may be some minor typographical inaccuracies resulting from audio issues.

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Thank you very much Mr. Gilbert Smith.

Master of Ceremonies, Mrs. Ivy Scott, JP, the Rev. Honourable Sophia Azan, Custos Rotulorum, President Rudolph Green of the St. Catherine Lay Magistrates, President of the All Island Lay Magistrates, Mr. Rion Hall, distinguished ladies & gentlemen.

I have got the big file, as you can see, but I don’t intend to keep you until midnight.  I hope you can be released before 10:00 o clock, but I hope that I can in this presentation; say something that will be of some interest to all the Justices of the Peace  (JPs) and also to their friends and families who are here.

First of all I must congratulate the Master of Ceremonies for her splendid jokes. I can’t really compete with her. But one thing I recognize that you must always yield to the ladies and indeed it is said, in a story told by Albert Einstein that great physicist; and he was asked, “What is the story behind the success of your marriage for 50 years?”  And he said when he and his wife got married they agreed that she would make all the little decisions and he would make all the big ones and that went on very happily but he said after 50 years he had always wondered how come there has been no big decisions.  Well I must tell you I do the same with my wife when she ask anything, I say “Anything you say.” And that is something to be recommended to all the men here, young and old.

When I was invited only last week to come and make a presentation to your dinner tonight they actually got a lawyer to persuade me that I must come because even though I have been on several radio programmes and television programmes I thought the first time I make a public address at least I must say what is my priority and what is my mission as Minister of Justice.  And even though I am not yet ready to give the full content and my hope of what the Ministry of Justice will do during my tenure, I was really persuaded by this lawyer and I must say you have to be very careful with lawyers. 

And the story is told in fact of three persons who were ship wrecked, a doctor, a priest and a lawyer not very far from the mainland.  The question was “Who would swim to the mainland to get rescue for the other two?”  Well the doctor said, “Not me, because it is shark infested waters, anything could happen and I need to dress the wounds.”  The pastor said, “Shark infested waters that is death, I may have to perform the last rites, so it can’t be me.” So the lawyer really had no excuse so he duly swam across, got help and the pastor and the doctor were brought back to the mainland and when they were brought back they said to the lawyer, “But how did you do it?  The shark swum beside you right over to the mainland,” and the lawyer just turned and look at them and said “professional courtesy”.   (Laughter)

As I say, I am just trying to compete with your Master Chairman (Laughter)

But this evening first of all let me congratulate the awardees.  I know they are all very well deserved, certainly the Golden Scale Award to Dr. Gladys Hyatt was certainly not only well deserved, but certainly you have impacted not only your fellow JP’s, but also on the people to whom you provide such excellent service. And to the other awardees I have no doubt that you have provided excellent, efficient and effective service to the people of your communities and that is why the President and his committee have seen it fit to make these awards.  I have no doubt that there are many more awardees for the future some of you who are here and in time you too will get the Golden Scale Award.  But I just want to say, as I listen to President Green and also to President Rion Hall, yes this Minister of Justice intends and is in the process of planning a lot of work for the JPs.  Only this week I must tell you I attended a policy meeting and we are looking at increasing the jurisdiction of the Petty Session Courts and also to look at the change of name to call it the ‘Lay Magistrates Court.’  It is still at the discussion stage but as you know my predecessor Sen. Dorothy Lightbourne asked about the need to increase the jurisdiction of the Petty Session Court and in time I will be discussing with the Custodes and the JPs just how much we can increase their jurisdiction to deal with civil matters; at the moment the figure is up to $2,000. Do we go to $10,000? To $25,000? Or what figure so that these matters can be dealt with in that Lay Magistrates Court/Petty Session Courts. And in terms of the criminal division, what other regulatory offence, simple or criminal offence, can be put before the JPs?

It means therefore that there is a great need for more JP’s and I can say to you Rev. Sophia Azan that it is a major concern not only of this Minister of Justice but also of many MP’s who with the Custodes Bill at the start of Parliament recently I insisted on putting a clause that the Custodes annually must send in their reports to the Ministry of Justice the adequacy of the number of JP’s in your community, in your parish.  And what this means is that we have to look across all communities, all the different districts so that we must and can find a person of integrity, honesty, unselfishness and someone willing to serve to be appointed.  There can be no doubt that in every community, district, parish in Jamaica there is a need for more JP’s and when we have too few JPs, the voluntary service that he or she is giving is being overburdened and that is the cry of many JPs, they have to spend so much of their time to assist their fellow citizens and for that we thank you, thank all the JPs, but it seems to me that voluntary service is something that we should be requesting more of our citizens and the question that we must ask and try to overcome, why is it we do not have more JPs?

I have written the Governor General, I think last week or early this week, to ask him to have a meeting of the Custodes, with my Ministry and myself with a view to look at more guidelines to check on the reasons or the problems that Custodies are having in appointing more JPs.  Should we be looking at appointing younger people? What criteria should we be looking at? Who should we be asking to recommend the appointment of JPs?  Is our political representative or should we be asking the JP’s themselves to recommend other persons? Should we be asking the pastors, the headmasters in the schools, the business people? 

To my mind we can easily, and we need to, double perhaps, triple the number of JPs in Jamaica of persons of uprightness, integrity, honesty, who are willing to serve the people of Jamaica, and I hope that during the course of the next few months rather than years, that this task can be undertaken so that more JPs can be appointed.  We have a training institute and I hope that with the appointment of these JPs the training can take place and hopefully we have in every community of Jamaica at least access to a JP to assist in the various services that JPs are now called upon to provide.

You hear of the work that we hope that the Minister of Justice have planned for the JPs, you will see the need for many more JPs because we do not want to overwork those who have voluntarily agreed to serve.  I can tell you that in my community in Grants Pen, Barbican, I have asked every single pastor to become a JP but more than half of them have refused as they say the work is too much. From what they see of other JPs, the work is too much and they already have pastoral duties. But it seems to me that if more persons of integrity are willing to serve it will ease the burden on everyone.  What I hope to ask the Custodes is to really encourage their colleagues of the JPs to recommend more persons and let us overcome the obstacles in the appointment of JPs because as you will hear in a few minutes some of the work that I really would ask the JPs to do. 

I could have completed my presentation tonight by simply adopting the presentation of Mr. John Golding, because he puts it succinctly, “This is our Jamaica.” We must not let it go to the rogues who would like to destroy it, we must serve and make sure that we build the Jamaica in which we must all live, work and die.  And I suspect that every single one of us inside here hope that when we do leave this earth, we would be buried here and if that is so we have the reason to make this little rock of ours the best place on earth. 

This year we celebrate our 49^th anniversary and next year we will be having a big celebration of the 50^th anniversary.  But then we must ask ourselves what have we accomplished in this half century of independence? And surely there are many, many failures.  Surely we have not accomplished and achieved what we anticipated when we got independence in 1962.  There certainly have been many setbacks, many failures and in truth the ordinary citizens of this country at this time is bewildered, frustrated, because so much is happening and the peace, the justice, the prosperity, the sense of fulfillment that we should have in a country we are not experiencing it at this time. 

(There can be no doubt … inaudible) I can say to you when you look at the Jamaica of today, many of the problems have been caused because our leaders and especially our political leaders have not led correctly, have not led and really pursued the correct path. We have been pulling and tugging, we have increase an in divisiveness in every community in Jamaica. And really and truly when you look at our Jamaica today we can say that the real problem has to do with the abuse and misuse of power and authority.  And it is not only the politicians who have misused and abused the power and authority, there are persons that are given power and given authority and they misuse and abuse them.  The question arises, surely power must be given to some to exercise some authority, but unless we have the necessary checks and balances, they will be abused.  You know it was Lord Acton who once said, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” And this will always happen, unless the citizens of this country or we put in place the necessary systems, structures and arrangements to check and balance power and authority wherever they are.  And I say tonight that I would like to show the JPs how you can assist in this check and balance of power within Jamaica.  

There can be no doubt that the present administration is determined to wipe out corruption.  We can never succeed as a country if we have corrupt practices whether it is in Cabinet, Gordon House, wherever corruption is, it bleeds and eats away at the social economic structure of our country and to that extent if we are going to move forward at all, we must curb and eliminate as much as we can – corruption.  And that is why we have at the moment in Parliament the Special Prosecutor Bill which we are fine tuning and we are hoping that by September it will be passed.  I presently chair the small committee to fine tune that Special Prosecutor Bill because that Bill, when it is passed, will ensure that any person in authority, any public official who can’t show how they have their wealth will be called up before the Special Prosecutor and must explain how they have their wealth. And it is not only the politicians, any public official who engages in the public duties, if they demonstrate a lifestyle that cannot be explained from their earnings, they are in trouble. The Special Prosecutor Bill, we are fine tuning it because we don’t want the innocent to be scandalized but when a Special Prosecutor charges someone, we want to make sure that indeed the person is not only charged but that you can get a successful conviction. 

At the moment, I am working on a Bill the Impeachment Bill and that has to do with any person, politician or anyone in authority who having been appointed who engages in any misconduct or any malfeasance, and who have demonstrated that he or she should not occupy that office then impeachment will take them down. So that all public official, anyone who is appointed to a high post will know that if you do not behave in a manner becoming of your office then you could be impeached.  This government is determined that people who occupy sensitive and high position must act in a morally upright and decent manner and it will be coming on stream soon. (Applause)

I would like to say to the JP’s, even now I need your help, because this Minister of Justice thinks that the people of Jamaica should be the ones who have the power, should be the ones who enjoy the rights and freedoms not only given to them by our Lord and by nature, but provided for and secured in the Constitution.  You are aware that Chapter 3 of the Constitution was just recently revised, whereas we have removed the ability of Parliament to pass any law to curb or restrict the rights and freedoms of the Jamaican people.  This Minister of Justice would like to promote, to protect, secure and enhance the rights and freedoms of every single Jamaicans because unless each Jamaican can expand and utilize all the rights and freedoms that he or she can and should enjoy, then they are not going to attain their full potential.

When I say the rights and freedoms I mean the right to express themselves as they see fit, the right to move about, the right to privacy, the right to religion, and all these rights and freedoms must be enjoyed unfettered, except to the extent that they are limited by not interfering with other people's rights and freedoms.  In other words enjoy your rights and freedoms but don’t interfere with your neighbour’s or the man who is beside you. In other words, you can play your music as much as you like but don’t cause inconvenience to your neighbour.  Express yourself as much as you like on the radio but don’t scandalize and defame others.  Enjoy your religion but respect other people who worship differently and don’t abuse them if they don’t believe in the same interpretation of the Bible; you have your interpretation, respect others who have another interpretation. 

All these rights and freedoms must be enjoyed but it must be limited by your neighbour’s rights and freedoms to enjoy his and hers.  So we are not going to let the state interfere with the rights and freedoms of the people.  Every person must recognize that they can enjoy his or her rights and freedoms but they have the responsibility and obligation to censor it where it is going to interfere with others and that is very important for everyone to recognize. 

And one area, there is so much that I can speak on in enjoyment of rights and freedoms,  but it is one single one that I want to discuss with you tonight, that is the right and freedom to move about Jamaica as freely as possible.  Recently we had an amendment to the Jamaica Constabulary Act where we increased the time to 72 hours during which the police can hold, arrest and detain a person without charge.  First of all, let me say very clearly, we have some heartless, brutish, violent people in Jamaica.  Many of them should be locked away and you know there are people who feel you don’t need a trial…you know who they are, just lock them away. 

If Jamaica is to be governed by a rule of law we have to go through the process, so let us go through the process, but once we go through the process then we lock them away.

Now there can be no doubt that the police need our support, and we, every single one of us, must try to work with the police to ensure that those heartless, brutish individuals who don’t want to be part of our society, that we pinpoint, spear fish and collect them and prosecute them to jail. I have no problem with that and nobody will have any problem with that, but the police must act professionally, intelligently and do some more spear fishing rather than net fishing. 

I think it is wrong for police to just go into a community and sweep away every young man they can find, take them to the station and say we are going to process them.  It is wrong and it is unconstitutional because the Constitution provides that no one should be arrested or detained unless you have reasonable grounds for doing so, and those reasonable grounds for doing so maybe because it is an order of the court or maybe you anticipated that the person or you know that the person has committed an act and you need to find the evidence or you suspect that the person is about to commit a act so therefore you arrest and detain the person. It may be that you believe or the police believe that there is going to be a reprisal because something happened, so you arrest and detain a person based on some reasonable ground.  And this indeed is what the amendment to the Constabulary Force (Interim Provisions for Arrest and Detention) Act actually states, and the critics were saying that the Act is wrong, they don’t look at the reason given - that you must have reasonable ground, reasonable suspicion for the detention of the person - all they are saying is; “72 hours? This is wrong.”

But as I said in Parliament, and I am saying here tonight, any detention even for more than a few minutes, that is not based on reasonable grounds, is unlawful and the act, false imprisonment can be prosecuted in the court of law. So that whether it is one hour, 24 hours, 48 hours or 72 hours, if it is not based on reasonable grounds it is unlawful and the persons or the parties or the police and the JPs who participate in that - they are guilty of misconduct.

And in that regard, as JPs I am calling on you now to police the police properly when they come to you when they come to you and want to arrest and detain someone for any period of time. Because what this Minister of Justice wants is that no one should be detained longer than a few minutes for questioning unless you have reasonable grounds for doing so. 

You know one of the reason I brought this file is because it is the Bill that we amended that I presented in Parliament and I don’t want to read everything I would just emphasize what it is saying, that is,  when the police and the Assistant Commissioner decide to detain anyone after that person is arrested, that person or persons must be brought before a JP for the JP to sign off on the detention of that person, and if the JP is not satisfied, the JP must say “Commissioner, Superintendent, I don’t like the reason.” And I am saying to you Justices of the Peace you have to stand up, your conscience must deliver you and if you feel that when the police bring persons to you they have not given you reasonable grounds or reasonable basis for detaining that person or those persons, you must be bold enough to say, “Officer I am not satisfied,” because if you merely sign without making an assessment you are contributing to the injustice being perpetrated. 

I am begging you, I am begging you, please, when you, the JPs of this country have to sign off on the detention of persons, yes, the police may be right, yes, you must trust the police as much as possible, yes, the police may have evidence that they don’t want to reveal to you, but you are at that point the arbiter to determine whether or not that young man or young woman is going to lose freedom for 24 or 72 hours, and believe me one hour in that jail cell is not a nice thing.  Many of you have may never have been in a jail cell. But one hour in that jail cell?

And just think of what it causes to the psyche of these young men when they know they have done nothing wrong, when they know they are being chastised because they come from a poor community or a poor inner city community. Think of what they feel and believe that the big people in society doing this to them. Believe me they complain that they can’t  deal with (inaudible)  the system, because the police and the JPs are working to ensure that they are kept down in the ghettos and I’m saying Justices of the Peace, a new leaf will have to be turned over.

I have written the Minister of National Security this week to ask him to give me, on a weekly basis, a list of all persons who have been arrested and detained without charge…I intend to get that list on a weekly basis so we can examine if persons were not kept on reasonable grounds, to examine why the police did it, and why the JP signed it. Because far too many of our citizen, most of them innocent, are being locked up as punishment, and beating them to show what they can do… (Inaudible), and this is a piece of injustice that we must cut out.

And don’t get me wrong you know, there are some of these young men who deserve to be charged. But if you know they have committed wrong, make sure you have the evidence before you arrest and detain them. Having picked them up, work assiduously to gather the evidence within 72 hours. The police say they can’t do it within 24 hours, so it has been increased to 72 hours, make sure you have the evidence within 72 hours, so that the person can be charged. But when you see so many cases of persons being detained and kept in jail, not sometimes for 72 hours, but sometimes longer, and they’re not charged, you wonder why some of these persons don’t sue the government.

If the citizens of this country, some of these young men, knew their rights and freedoms, the government would be more indebted than it is right now because if the police and JP who signed that approval cannot give good reason – reasonable grounds - for detaining that person, then before the Constitutional Court, persons could be eligible for significant awards for being falsely imprisoned.

Ladies and gentlemen, I urge you, if it’s one thing we can do to remove some of these injustices …especially for these poor young men, this is one area that we need to tighten up on.

There should be no doubt that when the police engage in a raid, that there are some criminals in the batch.  But if the police is to be respected, if they are to get the support of the community including us, and you the JPs, they must be encouraged to act professionally, they must be encouraged to gather the evidence, to gather the information intelligently, so that when you engage in a raid you know who you are going for and when you catch them it’s a matter of minutes or hours before you lay the charge, and once the charge is laid, you have complied, once the evidence is there. And apart from yourselves I will also be asking the Resident Magistrates, to do more visits to the jail houses and the remand centres to make sure young men and young women are not held in these dark places.

And many of these jail houses are not fit for human beings, and they are overcrowded, when the police engages in a raid and pick up 49, you will recall in Grants Pen and lock them up, and you will recall that three of them suffocated and that is one area where I interact with the police regularly to make sure that when they do a raid and pick up people, they release them at the earliest possible time. And I’m asking you the JP to please assist in this regard. Make sure that when they are picked up that they are released at the earliest possible time so that they can enjoy their rights and freedoms.

There can be no doubt that Jamaica suffers from a serious crime problem. We know it. But they we are not going succeed by creating more injustice. I want to tell you, when we cause young men especially innocent young men to be locked away and they feel the injustice they will tell you “If I have been in the jail cell innocently, I might as well go in there for a cause.” Are you with me?

It is not a good thing, because if they have done nothing wrong and they are being locked away then the question arises, “Why shouldn’t I try a ting?” When we mete out that injustice and cause undue frustration to these young people we are merely inciting them, instigating them to engage in criminality and I say to you, that if some of us are willing to stand up for some of these innocent young men we may well get a better response from them as we try to create a better community and a better society.

And let us face it, we have a real challenge. Sure enough there is at least one good indicator in the society now and it’s that crime seems to be going down - not fast enough - but at least we must give credit to the police and the hard work that the present Commissioner and his men are doing to reduce murders and serious crimes because the figures are suggesting that their work is succeeding. And one area where I believe is causing the success is that for the past year they have been engaging in community policing.

I know community policing can succeed, we do it in Grants Pen and because we do it in Grants Pen… since I have been there. I’m not saying that you don’t have crimes in Grants Pen. But there were several serious crimes, and now one year has passed and not one murder.

I don’t like to talk about it because every time I talk about it something happens. (Laughter)

But the truth of the matter is the pastors, the JPs, the police, the political representatives, the business people we gather regularly to discuss and meet and interact with the wrong doers because we identify them and let them know, ”We know you're responsible.” Now a days as far as I understand they don’t commit the crimes in Grants Pen, a few of them go outside and engage in criminality outside, and fortunately the police are identifying them and picking them up one by one. It can happen in any community, if we engage in community policing.  Community policing is similar to the last thing I want to talk to you about Restorative Justice.

It is all about a community working together to better the community. If you look at the back of your book, and I was very happy to see it, there is the principle there on restorative justice and it is well put and I don’t need to discuss it at length.

I know your awardees, your president and Mr. Phillips Keane-Dawes, Mr. Kenneth Burton and a number of other persons are engaged in restorative justice. We are now putting in four communities: Spanish Town, May Pen, Granville in St. James and Tower Hill in Kingston. And it is working. And what is restorative justice? If I may just briefly explain, I urge every single JP to buy into this programme because in restorative Justice.

With restorative justice we are making the victim and the wrong doer try to repair the harm that was caused by the wrong doer. In essence, where as in the present system of retributive justice the victim is not seen as a major player, apart from giving evidence in court, it is the state that goes after the wrong doer. What restorative justice is trying to say is, rather than retributive, retaliatory, reprisal, which is what presently happens, let us see if we can make the wrong doer accept responsibility, for which he is being charged or being pointed out as the person responsible, accept responsibility for it and see how you can repair the damage you have caused, not only to the victim, but to the community.

And it is for the community to work with the wrong doer to say “yes we know you have done wrong but we are willing to work with you if you accept the responsibility and admit that you have engaged in conduct that not only did it cause harm to the victim, but has certainly damaged the well being of the community.” 

And to that extent, it seems to me that if we work on it that way, we can pull wrong doers, the victims and ask members of the community to come together to heal the wound, to repair the damage and to that extent, because I don’t want to keep you here until midnight, I just ask you to please, buy into the programme, get in touch with your president Mr. Phillip Keane-Dawes and learn some more about restorative justice. We are going to launch it in many other communities, I’m going to speak about it more fully, but because I saw it in the booklet... (Inaudible)

I think that many of you understand the principle, it is a principle, it is a system, it is an activity that can really assist communities to remove the wrong doers or just get the wrong doers to mend their ways. It’s a system whereby communities can pull together and really lift themselves, not only psychologically, but socially and economically. And so far it has worked beautifully in other countries. And here in Jamaica in the four communities there seem to be a fair degree of success.

So I’m going to urge you JPs to please buy into the programme, participate in the programme, I know you’re already overworked, but this is one area where we can really pull Spanish Town and pull St Catherine up. Because there are going to be many persons who engage in wrong doing but we need to sit with them to let them know that we know you are the wrong doer and rather than carting you off to the police station or to jail, we are willing to work with you, if you want to work with us, but if you don’t want to work with us, then its jail.

But at the very minimum, for the government, it is a cost to keep them in jail. It is also a cost to the community, because after you have spent time in jail, they come back to the community worst off than how they went, unfortunate, but it’s the truth. And to the extent that we can tame a number of our young people to really bring them back into the fold and to become a useful person in the community, the better it will be for Jamaica.

Ladies and Gentlemen there is so much more that one could say but as Mr. (John) Golding said, “This is our Jamaica.” We have to work for it, and unless we are vigilant, we will not be enjoying the rights and freedoms that we must enjoy, that we deserve. So I call on you to please, help Jamaica, help our communities.

 I wish you God’s blessings; I thank you (Applause)