JFJ calls for withdrawal of JCF administrative review
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Human rights advocate group Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) is calling for the withdrawl of the recently released Report of the Administrative Review Committee of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), which exonerates five police officers, including a senior officer, who were accused of misconduct by the West Kingston Commission of Enquiry.
The internal JCF committee, which submitted its review to Police Commissioner George Quallo last month, cleared the five officers, saying there was no basis for the adverse findings and comments mentioned in the West Kingston report and equally there was no reason the named officers should not be allowed to continue to serve in their various capacities in the JCF.
JFJ, in a release today, said the administrative review headed by Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Wray Palmer, “simply ignores or denies elementary contradictory evidence collected and sifted painstakingly over 19 months”.
JFJ argued that it sends a message about senior members of the JCF and about policing that is very disturbing.
The human rights advocates further expressed concern about future police conduct in the soon to be introduced Zones of Special Police Operations.
JFJ said the review showed that a “clearing out” of a substantial part of the upper echelons of the force was necessary, as well as a formal acceptance of the findings of the Commission of Enquiry by Parliament.
The organisation said it was “shameful that 14 months after the Commission’s Report was tabled in the House, a Commission that has cost Jamaica hundreds of millions of dollars” has not been debated by Parliament.
JFJ said the seriousness of the matter was made clear in the declaration in the Commission Report that: “The most significant and worrying feature of our Enquiry was the fact that the JCF did not acknowledge responsibility for any civilian deaths whatsoever… The time has surely come to usher in a radical new culture in the operations of the security forces, a culture that provides a greater transparency and accountability.”
