ATTORNEY General AJ Nicholson on Friday, in indirect criticism of the police and their methods, said his office was concerned about the level of payments government has been making to victims brutalised by constabulary members, an average of $56 million per year.

NICHOLSON... we cannot continue to have such high judgement debts

Nicholson, who is under increasing pressure to offer a proper apology and better compensation to Michael Gayle's family, made the comment on the same day that news broke of yet another alleged police beating.

This time, the assault was against another cop who was unknown to the alleged beaters as a colleague, after he drank from a cup on a visit Wednesday to the barracks of a station house in Mt Salem, St James.

Yesterday, the policeman, Corporal Grantley Waite, 48, who is stationed in Kingston, was to have had surgery at Kingston Public Hospital yesterday, a leading trauma centre, and for now it remains uncertain whether he will be able to walk again.

Police commissioner Lucius Thomas has ordered a top level investigation of the events.
Gayle, a mentally ill man, was beaten to death in August 1999 by soldiers and policemen. Government paid a $2.7 million settlement to his family last November.

Senator Nicholson, speaking in the Senate in response to points raised by opposition senator Arthur Williams, during the debate on a bill proposing the creation of a civilian oversight authority to monitor the operations of the police force and its auxilaries, said that since 2001, the government has paid out over $280 million in judgments against the police.

He suggested that the proposed oversight body pay particular attention to monitoring the management and use of the financial and other resources of the force and its auxiliaries.

"Over the last five years, from 2001 to the present, the amount of money that has been paid in respect of judgment debts, arising out of issues concerning the Jamaica Constabulary Force, is over a quarter billion dollars - $280.5 million. You know what that money could do?" demanded the Attorney General, who is also the minister of justice.

"I am not saying that in the normal course of things you are not going to have mishaps and accidents and the like, but we cannot, certainly the Attorney General's chambers and the Ministry of Finance cannot continue to have these high judgment debts," he said.

The Ministry of Justice reported in August that it had budgeted $200 million to be paid out as compensation, within this fiscal year, to persons who have successfully brought legal action against the government.

However, the ministry's principal finance officer, Paula Gracie, admitted that the process was slowed by the requirement, effective since April, for beneficiaries to produce TRNs, proving they were registered taxpayers.

The $200 million budgeted this year is the largest allocation ever made by the government for judgment debt, and dates back to judgments made as far back as 2002.
The next largest allocation was the $146 million budgeted in 2002/03.

Senator Williams has raised concerns that the proposed $100,000 penalty against officers who obstruct the work of the oversight body, was too low and may not be a deterrent - comparing it to the $3 million penalty in another bill, the Health Facilities (Medical Laboratories) Act, which was passed earlier yesterday by the Senate, carried a penalty of $3 million for obstructing the work of the proposed Medical Laboratories Council.

But, Nicholson said that $100,000 penalty in the oversight bill was only one of several to which the police would be subjected.
He said that there were a number of other things which could be done, including dismissal.

The bill was eventually passed with support from both sides. It will now go back to the House of Representatives, where it originated, for final approval.

balfordh@jamaicaobserver.com

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