Editorial | Searching for timely justice | Commentary

WE APPRECIATE the efforts by Jamaica’s courts in recent years to accelerate the notoriously slow pace at which they dispense justice. But as this week’s ruling by the Privy Council in the Lascene Edwards case has reminded, there continues to be much work to be done on this front.

What the Privy Council, however, did not say, but which we know to be the case, is that achieving a more efficient justice system is not dependent only on what judges do. Their productivity – and the quality of the justice system overall – is impacted by the efficiency and quality of criminal investigators and prosecutors, on whom the system also depends. In that regard, the timeliness, and competence, with which the Jamaica Constabulary Forcand the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) do their jobs calls for vigilance and oversight.

With respect to the Privy Council’s suggestion that Mr Edwards suffered a miscarriage of justice, insofar as it implicates the Bench, we assume it to be an aberration, rather than a systemic problem of judicial incompetence. We expect, therefore, that Chief Justice Bryan Sykes will ensure that this case, and the board’s observations therein, is the basis for reflection by the judges under his leadership.

Mr Edwards was a police constable. In September 2003, he was accused of murdering Aldonna Harris-Vasquez, the mother of his twin children who had recently married a man who lived abroad; but Mr Edwards and Ms Harris-Vasquez still had an intimate relationship.

Mr Edwards’ contention was that she committed suicide, using his revolver to shoot herself in the head while he was asleep in her bedroom. It was the explosion that woke him and sent him scrambling to the living room to inquire if Ms Harris-Vasquez’s mother knew of her daughter’s whereabouts.

At the trial, and at appeal, where Mr Edwards’ conviction and life sentence were upheld, many questions were raised about the calibre of the forensic investigations and the inferences, negative to Mr Edwards, that were drawn from them. Similarly, defence lawyers were deeply dissatisfied with the judge’s summation of the evidence, insisting that she paid insufficient attention to arguments in Mr Edwards’ favour, especially in relation to the interpretation of forensic information. It was inconclusive on whether there was a murder or suicide. Mr Edwards was largely convicted on circumstantial evidence.

His acquittal this week turned, fundamentally, on new, independent analysis and interpretation of the forensic evidence, which the Privy Council agreed to consider. The first-instance judge’s summation of the evidence, and her instructions to the jury, also found disfavour with the Privy Council, and contributed to its conclusion that Mr Edwards’ conviction was “unsafe”.

These issues apart, the case again highlighted a long-standing, much-talked-about and worrying problem in Jamaica’s justice system – long delays before people are brought to trial. It was a decade between Mr Edwards’ arrest and his trial. And it took an additional eight years until the Privy Council heard his final appeal.

Indeed, as Sir David Bean (whose standing position is a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, which is a rung below the UK Supreme Court, whose judges comprise the Privy Council) noted in the judgment, lawyers for the Jamaican Government “conceded that Mr Edwards’ right to a fair trial under Section 16 of Jamaica’s Constitution was breached by the 10-year delay between arrest and trial, and the respondent (the Government) does not oppose the making of a declaration to that effect”.

The board noted that it had not been asked whether compensation should be paid to Mr Edwards from the breach of his Section 16 right to “a fair trial within reasonable time”. It however argued that the more significant issue, although that was not within the jurisdiction, was whether “Mr Edwards shall receive compensation for the miscarriage of justice which occurred”.

“We commend his case for their consideration,” the Privy Council ruling said. Mr Edwards’ local lawyers have already signalled that such a demand will be made.

The primary concern of most people who interest with the courts, though, is not a miscarriage of justice, it is about reaching first base – having justice dispensed. In that sense, there are many Lascene Edwards – and worse: people who have waited, or are still waiting, for their cases to be heard a decade after being charged. Even if the wait is not as long as Mr Edwards’, it is often still too long for it not to be tantamount to an abridgement of the citizen’s Section 16 right.

What makes this particularly galling is that while the constitutional issues addressed in that matter may not be the exact equivalent of those in the Edwards’ case, the question of delays in court hearings, and the potential consequences thereof, has been in the public’s consciousness since the Privy Council’s ruling in Pratt and Morgan, nearly 30 years ago. In that 1993 ruling, which also involved prolonged delays in matters being heard, the Privy Council held that failing to execute a capital punishment after five years was indeed cruel and inhumane.

We acknowledge the work being done in the courts to get them working faster. The systematic publication of performance data aids transparency, which enhances accountability, which is good for efficiency. There have been improvements in the clear-up rates of cases, preventing the enlargement of the mountains of backlogs.

But the process has to be more aggressive. That it is not merely a matter of how judges manage their courtrooms and time in chambers. For if the police charge people with crimes, putting their lives on hold, then send incomplete files to the DPP, and then take years to follow up, that, too, gums the system. If the ODPP has too few prosecutors which allows matters to fall through the cracks, that contributes to the inefficiency in the justice system and the abridgement of people’s constitutional right to a fair hearing within reasonable time.

Maybe the ODPP should invite regular independent management review and performance analysis to help in its public accountability, while the Police Civilian Oversight Authority should be more aggressive and open with its oversight of the constabulary.