Cornwall Bar Association creates SOE task force

WESTERN BUREAU:

Lambert Johnson, president of the Cornwall Bar Association, has said that he has assembled a task force of defence attorneys to ensure that persons detained under the states of emergency (SOE) in St James, Hanover, and Westmoreland receive swift justice.

“The number of persons being kept in the custody of the police keeps growing, and so as president of the Cornwall Bar, I have started what I call a sate of Emergency task force where the attorneys prepare the paper works for all the persons who are in custody,” Johnson told The Gleaner after participating in a meeting called by Westmoreland’s custos, the Reverend Hartley Perrin, with members of the security forces and other stakeholders from the business community to discuss concerns raised by residents about inappropriate conduct by security personnel in that parish.

According to Johnson, once generated, the prepared paper work is submitted to the SOE tribunal so that the affected persons can appear before it.

PUBLIC LAUNCH

Johnson said that the task force, which is made up mostly of defence lawyers operating in Westmoreland and St James, is already is work and that a public launch will take place soon.

“As far as I know, the tribunal sit as the needs arise, but when the states of emergency task force really gets going, they will have the need to sit far more often than they are now sitting,” said Johnson. “The police said they currently have 70 persons in custody under the state of emergency in western Jamaica. I am quite sure that of that number, maybe about 30 to 40 per cent are being held innocently because all that is required to happen is someone who is malicious to make a report to the security forces.”

Johnson further said that the tribunal does not have enough room within which to operate because its recommendations can be overturned by the minister of national security.

“The tribunal was set up by virtue of the Emergency Power Acts, and, of course, my greatest concern is that the tribunal cannot overturn any order made by the minister [of national security]. They can only recommend to the minister, who is entitled to reject any recommendations and keep the person in custody,” stated Johnson.

He noted that the police do not have to expose the source of their information for good reasons and because of that, there is no way that defence lawyers can test the intelligence for which they say they have on the persons that are detained under the SOE.