JFJ renews complaints about use of SOEs

   

Lobby group Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) has criticised the government for what it calls the rolling use of States of Public Emergency in St. James without consultations with the parliamentary opposition.

 

States of Public Emergency were declared Thursday in St. James, Hanover, St. Catherine and Clarendon.

 

The measure was reimposed in St. James after the November 8 declaration expired Tuesday.

 

Executive Director of JFJ Mickel Jackson says the government has circumvented the Constitution by reimposing the measure in St. James. 

 

"This move, in our opinion, is suggestive of a government that is not respectful of the Constitution. It's suggestive of a government that has autocratic and authoritarian tendencies, and it is something that every single Jamaican citizen ought to be concerned about. 

 

"We cannot live in a free and democratic society where a government can decide that the Constitution is simply inconvenient and therefore let's find a loophole in their estimation to circumvent the Constitution. That is something, an act that is alarming, and I don't think any Jamaican citizen ought to sit back and have such an action go unchecked in a democratic society," she argued. 

 

Jamaicans for Justice has again expressed concern about the use of States of Public Emergency as a routine crime fighting measure.

 

Ms. Jackson said the judgment in the Everton Douglas case spoke to the constitutionality of the SOEs being used as a crime fighting tool.

 

The Court of Appeal dismissed the government's appeal against a Supreme Court ruling that the detention of five men, including Everton Douglas, under the state of emergency was unconstitutional.

 

According to Ms. Jackson, notwithstanding crime being at alarming levels it does not pass the constitutional test of SOEs being utilised in such a manner.

 

She has called for the Jamaica Constabulary Force Act, which allows for the use of cordon, curfew and increased police presence, to be used to deal with the scourge of crime. 

 

"The question is, what is SOE giving the police force that the Jamaican Constabulary Force Act cannot? And what we're seeing is that by utilising the SOEs in this way we are moving towards a military state and it is not something that can be supported in a free and democratic society."