LOCAL human rights group, Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ), has denied that it badgered Dr Royston Clifford, the Government’s chief forensic pathologist, out of office and insisted that its complaints against the doctor and his department were grounded in ensuring professionalism and accuracy.

“Jamaicans For Justice has not set out to embarrass Dr Clifford,” the group’s executive director, Dr Carolyn Gomes, said in a letter to the Sunday Observer responding to an interview published in last week’s edition in which Clifford accused JFJ of trying to manipulate him.

“We have simply insisted that the quality of work and the quality of leadership of the Department of Forensic Pathology of the Ministry of National Security be brought up to an acceptable standard.”

Two weeks ago, the Ministry of National Security announced that it would not be renewing Clifford’s contract, ostensibly because he had been away from the job for more than a week without permission or having applied for leave.

But it was an open secret that the ministry was unhappy with Clifford’s resistance to a Government directive that the families of victims of police killings should have observers at autopsies.

Clifford’s intransigence first became an issue in 1999 after he objected to an observer being present at the post-mortem of Michael Gayle, a mentally-ill young man who died after being beaten by police and soldiers at a roadblock in Kingston 11.

Jamaicans For Justice had lobbied for the presence of the independent observer, which was authorised by the Government.

Clifford also resisted the presence of independent observers at other autopsies, including those of seven young men who were killed in March 2001 by the police at a house in St Catherine in what the police say was a gunfight.

He raised similar objections at the autopsies of victims of the West Kingston violence months later.

But the issue climaxed last month when Clifford was reported to have blocked attempts to have an independent pathologist observe the autopsy of Basil Brown, a Rastafarian vendor who was shot dead by the police outside Andrews Memorial Hospital in Kingston early in the month.

Clifford was given a 24-hour ultimatum to state his position on the policy directive and was sacked when he did not respond.

“We have come to a point now where we just believe enough is enough,” said Donovan Nelson, a security ministry spokesman. “We ought to make the kind of moves that would enforce that directive. We just cannot allow a situation to continue where people employed to the ministry continue to flout the directive of the ministry at will.”

Clifford had stated as his reason for frowning on observers, his lack of confidence in their decisions. “I have objected to observers in the past because I have no confidence in decisions they have made,” he had told the Sunday Observer. “My experience is that transparency is usually followed by dishonesty.”

Last week, JFJ said it had, for four years, been concerned about shoddy post-mortems, done in substandard facilities, which, the group said, were incapable of producing results that would assist the police and the courts to seek the truth in cases of sudden death.

“This is the duty of the forensic pathologists, and this is what they are employed by us (the citizens of Jamaica) to do,” Gomes said.

In the Brown case, Clifford had claimed in the Sunday Observer interview that the independent observer — Dr Ademola Odunfa — told the family that he observed six gunshot wounds to the body. But the doctor who performed the post-mortem and the police investigator reported that Brown was shot three times. There were three entry wounds and three exit wounds, Clifford said.

But Gomes denied that Dr Odunfa had made any such report to Brown’s family or anyone else. “The family has been given a copy of his report on the autopsy,” Gomes said.

She also rejected Clifford’s claim that JFJ had tried to have him replaced with Odunfa, a former Government Pathology Department employee who JFJ uses as an independent observer at autopsies.

“Jamaicans For Justice has never suggested to the Ministry of National Security that it employ Dr Odunfa to replace Dr Clifford,” Gomes said. “We have fought very hard to have Dr Clifford obey the directives of the ministry and the norms of international practice in allowing full and unobstructed access of any and all designated observers acting on behalf of the families at the Government Forensic Pathology facility at Spanish Town.”

Gomes also rubbished Clifford’s uncomplimentary comments about Dr Peter Leth, a Danish forensic pathologist whom Amnesty International brought to Jamaica to observe the Braeton post-mortems.

Clifford had claimed that Leth was not a forensic pathologist and said that he (Leth) had testified in court that he did three seminars to become an expert.

But, countered Gomes: “Dr Leth is a fully qualified forensic pathologist and medical doctor, having obtained his MD in 1983, as well as a PhD in Forensic Medicine. Dr Leth did not testify that ‘he did three seminars to be an expert’. In fact, Dr Leth testified, in the Braeton Coroner’s Inquest, as to the depth and breadth of his qualifications and experience.”

Gomes also said that Leth did take notes during the autopsy, correcting a section of the story.

Gomes added that Jamaicans For Justice was deeply disappointed that appeals to common sense, national and international norms, ministerial and prime ministerial policy directives and to public interest find no favour with Clifford.

“It is a shame that he should end his career in this manner, making spurious, inaccurate statements and believing that “transparency is usually followed by dishonesty,” Gomes said.

She added: “As Jamaica strives to move into the 21st century, we will need to be guided at all times by the principles of responsibility, accountability and transparency and in this regard we welcome the commitment of the prime minister to ‘ensuring transparency in the conduct of post-mortem examinations’.”