AMIDST concerns raised by rights watchdog Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) about utterances by Prime Minister Andrew Holness indicating support for the reimposition of the death penalty, Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs Marlene Malahoo Forte on Wednesday said she is of the view that its reintroduction would not be a backward step, as felt in some quarters.

“I do not share the view that implementation of the death penalty would be a retrograde step,” said the legal and constitutional affairs minister, who was formerly Jamaica’s attorney general. She, however, noted that her “personal view” was not to be seen as “an indication of what the Government will or will not do”.

According to Malahoo Forte, while she harbours “concern about the use of the death penalty” she was also of the opinion that, “more than anything else I do believe that when you have penalties if you are not going to use them, get rid of them; if you have them, use them”.

The minister’s remarks came on the heels of observations made on Wednesday by JFJ Executive Director Mickel Jackson who, while speaking at the launch of the organisation’s Annual State of Justice Report, at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in St Andrew, said the entity had been concerned about those “hyperbolic utterances” from the prime minister.

The prime minister, addressing a Jamaica Labour Party conference last November, said there needs to be stiffer penalties for anyone found with a gun and that he felt so strongly about the issue that sanctions should start with the death penalty.

Capital punishment remains in the books in Jamaica but may only apply in certain aggravated murder convictions. However, there have been no executions since 1988.

“… Those in leadership must always ensure the rights of citizens are protected and the principles of our democracy upheld. It is for that reason that JFJ was in fact concerned last year around the hyperbolic utterances that would have been made around proposed legislation that would see the death penalty imposed for gun offences”.

“We say that any imposition of the death penalty would not only be a regressive step in a maturing democracy, but one ultimately would see no reduction in crime,” Jackson argued on Wednesday.

In the meantime, she said while the JFJ welcomes legislative reforms for crime management, “the proposed harsh penalties and mandatory minimum sentencing for illegal possession of firearms, in our estimation, may very well disproportionately affect the marginalised young people some of whom are being recruited for gangs, some of whom would have lost their opportunities for education”.

“In our estimation, we believe that removing the court’s discretion for determining appropriate punishment without considering the facts of the case or the circumstance of the offender is a cause for concern and may very well undermine the very thing we are trying to achieve,” she declared.

Chief Justice Bryan Sykes earlier this month said Parliament’s decision to introduce a new Firearms Act making it so that anyone convicted of illegal possession of a firearm must serve a minimum 15 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole was, “quite a rational and reasonable response to the growing problem for a country that does not manufacture firearms”. But he was not as forthcoming about the Parliament’s move to curtail the discretion of judges in meting out sentences.

“I’m not going to get into whether the legislature is wrong or right, but just to say it seems as if there has been a level of disquiet with how the judiciary has been dealing with firearm offences. So, parliamentarians as they are, are entitled to do, have taken a different view of the matter and decided to reduce the discretion that the trial judge has in some instances. Whether they are right or wrong, is neither here nor there at this point, it is just what is,” the chief justice said.

The Bill, which was tabled by National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang, will be reviewed by a joint select committee of the House and Senate.

Previously, it was left up to judges to determine how much time a convict would spend behind bars as there was no minimum sentence. The maximum sentence of life imprisonment under the old law will be retained in the new legislation.