Executive Director of Jamaicans for Justice Mickel Jackson has criticised the Public Services Commission for failing to appoint a new Director of Public Prosecutions upon the departure of the incumbent.
Paula Llewellyn demitted office last Friday, after 17 years in the post.
Senior Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Claudette Thompson is acting DPP.
Ms. Jackson, speaking Monday on Radio Jamaica's Beyond the Headlines, said the failure to appoint a new DPP reflects poorly on the Public Services Commission.
She is calling for amendments to the appointment process to ensure greater transparency.
It was not satisfactory, she said, for the public to be relying on the media to hear that there are four short-listed candidates for the post, "and we don't know how that process is going on."
It was "an indictment that we don't have a DPP appointed when we all knew September 19 was coming."
Instead, she said, there should be a clearly defined process, one in in which it is clear what steps will be taken to appoint a new DPP.
Adley Duncan, a former Jamaican prosecutor, now working in Bermuda, said the next DPP will have big shoes to fill, and will need to have "the appropriate traits of leadership... and most important of all, is the ability to be an individual, because Miss Llewellyn was DPP for 17 years."
Accordingly, he said, it was critical for the next DPP to be "able to lead the office in a fresh way."
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