Will always honour Dudley's memory

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Dear Editor,

The public defender, an independent commission of Parliament, owes its existence largely to the exertions of the late Dudley Thompson.

In 1968, then an Opposition senator, he moved a private member's motion in the Upper House, calling for the establishment of the Office of Parliamentary Ombudsman. Having made a close study of that institution, (which at the time dated back some 150 years), Mr Thompson proposed its establishment in Jamaica, for the classical purposes of remedying maladministration. Reaction to his initiative was mixed, ranging from lukewarm through scepticism to abject rejection. Then, the idea was regarded in some quarters as an astute attempt to set up a new political organisation: even "an alternative government". Generally, the Parliament of the day was dominated by men who saw all things through the hazy prism of partisan politics.

But Mr Thompson was as unwavering in his passionate pursuit of a most worthy objective as he was in persuasive advocacy. By the closing years of the 1970s, having attained the level of Cabinet minister, he had won over the sceptics and silenced the naysayers. Thus, an Ombudsman Act was legislated by near acclamation, in 1978. The first ombudsman, Mr Errington George Green, the great exemplar, was sworn in shortly afterwards.

In carrying the day, did the great man actually waylay the antagonists? The answer is the stuff of wiser retrospective and discernment. But some support for the notion may derive from an amusing anecdote. The story is told of Mr Thompson motoring some place in deep rural Jamaica, when he was spotted by a bare-footed cultivator, making his stately progress upon a faithful jenny, his head crowned with a frayed weather-beaten straw hat, his trousers rolled up half-way, the knees having long given way to wear and tear. Astride the donkey was his young grandson. The aged gentleman demanded of the lad: "Bwoy, yuh know a who dat?" The boy, wide-eyed and drop-jawed asked: "No, Papa, a who im?" The answer: "Dat a Mass Dudley, di ambushman!". I am told by my eyewitness informant that the exchange, apparently overheard by Mr Thompson, provoked a wry smile. What the story certainly illustrates is that, in the event, the tireless pursuit of Mr Thompson's conviction that the office of ombudsman was an institution quite necessary to the fulfilment of a higher order of democratic government in a newly emerging nation, had permeated the heartland.

In the 1980s, the office of parliamentary ombudsman spawned other species, notably that of ombudsman for public utilities, later a political ombudsman and an Office of Utilities Regulations. How the world turns!

When the parliamentary ombudsman was extinguished in 2000, the creature called public defender was inaugurated with the added mandate of protecting and enforcing constitutional rights.

There is another aspect of the matter that deserves to be recorded. It happens to have been Mr Thompson who first encouraged the last parliamentary ombudsman and first public defender, my predecessor Mr Howard Hamilton, to take on law studies. On his admission to the bar, Mr Hamilton naturally gravitated to the chambers of Mr Thompson, by then a leading, if not the pre-eminent barrister at the criminal bar. Mr Hamilton gratefully acknowledges the huge debt of gratitude he owes to Mr Thompson, as his leader at the bar, his mentor and unerring guide, both in the principles of law and of life. How indeed, does the world turn!

As for me, and, in another life, I witnessed up front from the press desk, the wily manoeuvres of a devastating cross-examiner, whose addresses to juries in criminal trials were nothing short of mesmeric, as Mr Churchill Neita attests. If any of his clients was guilty in law or in fact, I should never know. For having listened to him, one always got the impression that the prosecution had, somehow or other, indicted the wrong man.

My learned friend, Howard Hamilton, therefore joins me and all officers and agents of the public defender, in expressing sadness at his passing. We convey our profound condolences to his widow, Cecile, his children and family. In his memory, we shall strive to discharge our functions fearlessly, passionately and compassionately. In that way we shall ever seek to honour his memory as visionary institution builder (the odd blemish put aside), whose ennobling example is well worthy of emulation.

Earl Witter

Public Defender

78 Harbour Street

Kingston

Do you feel buying into Facebook now is a good investment for the long-run?
	Yes
	No

View Results
Results published weekly in Sunday Finance

Username:
Password:

Bolt clocks pedestrian time to win Ostrava 100m

Will always honour Dudley's memory