Opposition sceptical of ‘knee-jerk legislation’
A LACK of sufficient legal powers to support effective policing is not one of our problems. The police can arrest on reasonable suspicion, and often do even when their suspicion is not based on a solid reason. Cordons can be established, to control entry and egress from an area of operations, and curfews may be imposed if the minister of national security is in agreement. If it is felt that the security forces need, in extreme circumstances, to be able to impose curfews in problematic areas for longer than the 48 hours currently allowed under the Constabulary Force Act, this may be achieved through an appropriate amendment to that Act. This would be supported by the Opposition, if the amendment includes well-designed procedural mechanisms to ensure accountability through parliamentary oversight, and to protect the rights and freedoms of persons living in these communities.
The Opposition is therefore sceptical about knee-jerk legislation, introduced during a period of heightened national fear and anxiety due to the escalating murder rate, which seeks to significantly weaken civil liberties by adding wide new powers to the security forces. It is at times like these that some of Jamaica’s worst legislative mistakes have been made, including the notorious Suppression of Crime Act of 1974 and the illfated crime bills of 2009. We must learn from past errors, and not be intoxicated by the pall of fear into repeating them in a misguided response to the current crime wave.
The Law Reform (Zones of Special Operations) (Special Security and Community Development Measures) Bill will do nothing to address any
of the real challenges that I have listed above. Instead, the bill, in the form brought to Parliament by the prime minister, will permit the creation of a situation with marked similarities to a state of public emergency, but without the safeguards that are required by our Constitution to protect our basic rights from being undermined by legislation which arrogates excessive and unchecked powers to the Executive.
The bill operates surreptitiously, by allowing the Government to create the conditions akin to a state of public emergency, without making it clear to the public and the world that this is what is happening.
NEGATIVE IMPACT
The Memorandum of Objects and Reasons in the bill betrays this modus operandi, with the telling statement that “This Act should not have the negative impact on Jamaica, which could likely occur if a declaration of a state of public emergency was made.”
More important, the regime in the bill will be very amenable to far-reaching abuse. The ‘prime minister in council’ is given control of the initiation of the extreme measures permitted by the bill. The prime minister in council is a new concept, and refers to the prime minister presiding over the National Security Council. The National Security Council is a committee comprised of the prime minister, a few other ministers of government, and the heads of the security forces. It meets behind closed doors, and its proceedings are highly confidential. There is therefore no transparency in its deliberations, or oversight of its decisions.
The bill will allow the prime minister in council to make an order declaring any geographically defined area within Jamaica as a ‘zone of special operations’. While it says that the entire island of Jamaica cannot be declared a zone, this would theoretically allow the entire Jamaica, other than say the Jamaica House property, or the area comprised of a circle with a radius of 10 metres around Blue Mountain Peak, to be declared a zone of special operations. The people’s representatives in Parliament have no say. Cabinet has no say, as the power is given to the prime minister in council, an organ not recognised by the Constitution of Jamaica.