Our leaders in all their wisdom granted the Independent Commission of Investigations (Indecom) wide powers that, in effect, stripped police officers of the rights that are guaranteed to the average citizen of our country.

I have given my opinion on this many times, so there is no need to repeat my disgust or confusion as to why this has occurred.

However, since there is precedent that our lawmakers are capable of passing laws that strip rights, I have to ask what if the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) had Indecom’s power?

To properly answer this question we have to look at the powers that Indecom has which makes the organisation unique, or more importantly, what rights does the Indecom Act strip from police officers?

Firstly, and most important, the right to remain silent.

Police officers have no such right, but murderers and child killers do. So if they were stripped of this right, the norm of “no comment” in most question and answer interviews would end.

The silence of the suspect would be treated as an admission of guilt.

Another unique power that Indecom has is that it cannot be sued for anything. Not even malicious or wrongful prosecution. This is huge. It means that no matter what junk or manufactured evidence it uses to prosecute an officer, which is subsequently uncovered during a trial, it cannot be used in a civil suit against Indecom.

So if we look on the many cases brought against Corporal Kevin Adams that have fallen one by one that would represent a major civil case, if he was a civilian they would go unpunished and without any compensation. That is to include his five-year remand.

So can you imagine if this type of exemption applied to police officers?

The ability to bring frivolous or corrupt prosecution could go unpunished with no risk of being sued into bankruptcy.

This horror story that police officers face everyday they fire their weapons or fight when attacked would now be shared with the killers of our women and children. Both criminals and lawmen would be left without any recourse.

Now I don’t support any citizen being stripped of his/her ability to seek compensation for being wronged by the State, but if the lawmen are to be stripped of their rights, then why not the criminals.

What though would be the legal route to ensure that this right-stripping would be isolated to criminals and not any normal citizen.

In the case of the lawmen, to fit the criteria to be stripped of your rights, you only have to take an oath to serve and protect your country and its citizens. So in the case of the gangster, it would require a legal designation, similar to how the Homeland Security Act designates someone as a terrorist and then strips him/her of rights based on the designation.

So if we use the “terrorist” label, are we saying that our group of gunmen are comparative to muslim terrorists in ability or commitment?

No. We’re not. We are saying that their ability to wreak havoc and bring about misery to our weak is significant, and the weak’s rights matter. It is what is required to protect them.

So what really is the backstory of how a sensible set of people like Jamaicans ended up creating a law that strips lawmen of rights, whilst leaving gangsters with all of theirs.

It came about as a knee-jerk reaction to the Tivoli Gardens incident in 2010, loosely known as the Tivoli incursion. The loss of life was considerable. The international condemnation significant. The lawmen’s rights dispensable. This is why a knee-jerk reaction to any issue is usually regretted in the long run.

In fact, the entire Indecom Act is badly thought out and enacted. It allows the Indecom officers to be both activist and independent investigator, it allows for special interest groups to donate money to Indecom and, most importantly, it strips the rights of lawmen and makes them second-class citizens.

So, would the ability of the State to be reckless with the rights of citizens, in respect of the right to seek compensation for malicious or wrongful prosecution, reduce crime in the long run?

I’m not sure. I think that the standard to charge and bring a case before the court is significant, as at the end of the day the Office of the Direction of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) moderates it.

One could say that they also moderate Indecom, but this has been such a point of contention that there are limits to the State due to the likelihood of public condemnation and the constant ghost of the international community.

The right to remain silent is a totally different tool. Removing this would help significantly as it’s not uncommon for you to arrest a suspect who is volunteering and cooperating until his attorneys show up and he immediately switches to “no comment”.

I would close in saying that when we amend the Act to forbid foreign interference and ban the acceptance of taking donations from special interest groups, when we remove that aspect of the Act that makes Indecom have an agenda to reduce shootings as part of its mandate whilst functioning as independent investigators, we should at that point return the rights of the members of the armed forces so they can at least be equal to the killers they combat on our behalf.

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