Constitutional Court to begin hearing first challenge to detention under 2018 State of Emergency

The Constitutional Court will on Tuesday afternoon begin hearing the first challenge to the State of Emergency which was imposed in St James.

Roshaine Clarke, who was detained for months without charge, is challenging his detention on the basis that his human rights were violated.

Bert Samuels, one of Mr. Clarke’s attorneys, told RJR News that his client had “suffered a great ordeal in St. James during the State of Emergency, wherein he’s of the view that his constitutional right to liberty was abused.”

He was therefore challenging the use of “unreasonable detention,” Mr. Samuels said.

While conceding that a state of emergency “does in fact relax a lot of the provisions of the Charter of Rights,” (in Chapter 3 of the Jamaican Constitution) he asserted that it was still “a good case of abuse of the rights of this gentleman.”