Members of the JLP shadow cabinet after the team was announced by Opposition Leader Bruce Golding (seated centre) on May 30. Seated (from left) are: Ken Baugh, Derrick Smith, Dorothy Lightbourne, Shirley Williams, Audley Shaw and Dwight Nelson. Standing (from left): Andrew Gallimore, Pearnel Charles, Karl Samuda, Andrew Holness, Horace Chang, Anthony Johnson, James Robertson, Rudyard Spencer, and Clive Mullings.

The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is to formally reply to what it described as "blatant misrepresentations" made recently by Attorney-General A J Nicholson regarding delays in the administering of the death penalty.

The decision was made during yesterday's first meeting of the new shadow cabinet at the party's Belmont Road offices in Kingston.

According to the JLP, a committee comprising Senator Dorothy Lightbourne, Delroy Chuck and Derrick Smith has been assigned to "carry out a detailed examination of the issues surrounding the bureaucratic and institutional delays in administering the death penalty".

The team, the JLP said, is to make a report of its findings to the shadow cabinet in two weeks.

"The issue of the long delays in executing the death penalty was discussed and the Opposition spokesman on justice, Delroy Chuck, who had been off the island, was directed to respond to a number of blatant misrepresentations that have been published by the attorney-general," the party said in a release yesterday.

Last month, Nicholson blamed the delay in hanging convicted criminals on what he said was a failure by the Opposition to agree to proposed amendments to the constitution.

But Opposition spokesman on national security Derrick Smith responded by saying that the delay was a result of the incompetence of the Government.

"The shadow cabinet reaffirmed the urgency of this review in light of the unprecedented rate of murders now taking place in the country," the JLP said.

Among the other decisions taken at the meeting was that amendments be made to a draft bill to amend the Contractor-General Act. The bill, the JLP said, would be resubmitted for approval before being tabled in Parliament.

The shadow cabinet also decided to review the US State Department report on human trafficking which downgraded Jamaica on the basis that it was a transit point for illegal immigrants moving to the United States and Canada. The report, released last Friday, also claimed that Jamaican children were being trafficked internally for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

Yesterday, the shadow cabinet also gave approval to a resolution to be tabled in Parliament by the leader of the opposition calling for a review of the Corruption Prevention Act as is required by law.

"The new Corruption Prevention Act has made no discernible impact on the level of corruption in the society," the JLP said.

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