DPP and Indecom, are they effective ?

When two arms of the justice system wars, the people are the ones who suffer in the process.

Here are two arms of the justice system, where we have two obviously bright folks, who no doubt believe they are the best at what they do in their respective fields and that may be true.

There are however a lot of ego at work in both departments, with the DPP’s Paula Llewellyn being of the belief that any criticism of her is not on merit, but solely because she is a woman in what she calls a man’s job.

On the other hand Terrence Williams believes that whatever he says everyone should accept as gospel including the DPP.

I do not however subscribe to the notion that the DPP is being criticized when  she is,  simply because she is a woman, but those criticism comes about  because people does not believe that she has been an effective DPP and that the prosecutors are doing a very poor job.

One of the biggest problem we have in Jamaica is egotist people, who by virtue of their jobs believe they should be worshiped and should never face criticism regardless of how badly their performance is perceived to be.

Paula Llewellyn is no doubt a brilliant mind, but what appears to be lacking is the conversion of that brilliance into performance where it really matters.

Terrence Williams also appears to be a brilliant main, but like Paula, we do not  see that being translated into performance where it really matetrs

How does one measures the performance of the DPP and Indecom and are the two interlinked. Now I do not  profess to be a lawyer or understand the full working on the legal system, so what I am about to say is my own interpretation and a commonsense approach.

Both Paula and Terrence are good at defending themselves and prepare long boring reports, most of which is hardly read. They can both lecture you from now until a morning, but where both fall down is securing conviction.

The job of the DPP is to secure conviction plain and simple . Now don’t get me wrong here, I am not suggesting that this conviction be secured via unprofessional and or unethical conduct, no, but at the end of the day the job of the DPP is to secure convictions.

It is the job of the defendants lawyer to ensure no such convictions takes place ie the lawyers job to set the person he is representing free regardless of the perceived guilt of the person in relation to the crime for which he or she has been charged.

Indecom has failed to have a single conviction since its inception, which points to a colossal failure on the path of Terrence Williams as head of that organization. Terrence therefore needs to take a step back and look at what Indecom may be doing wrong. Terrence you cannot do a half baked investigation and take it to the DPP and force a conviction.

The DPP on the other under the leadership of Paula has not feared much better, as while she has secured come convictiosn, the rate at which this occurs pales in comparison to the failure to secure such convictions.

I do not have the figures on hand but I suspect that the conviction rate of the DPP is somewhere between 15- 25% of all the case brought before the court, I would be pleasantly surprised if it were higher than that.

The failure to secure conviction lies with the DPP and not the investigator as the DPP would like for us to believe and where those cases does not make it to trial the DPP must be partially blamed.

The Office of the DPP has to play a much bigger role in securing convictions of criminal elements in the country if faith is to be restored in the justice system.

The DPP ought to know what evidence needs to be collected, the manner in which it must be collected and secured if one is to beat back the attacks of our lawyers. That being said, why are we not see more collaboration with the various arm of the justice system to ensure the entire system works.

So often we hear a file has been prepared and sent to the DPP for a ruling ie for the DPP to say if a case is there to be heard or not. What role does the DPP play before the file get to that office and does the laws of Jamaica allows for the DPP to advice the cops on what information it requires if it believes there may be a strong bullet proof case for conviction.

I frankly do not believe the DPP is doing enough and I believe she feels she can always write a 200 page report to explain away the failures of her office to secure convictions when to the public a conviction was always on the cards.

Indecom is no better, they need to ensure they are being fair and do not seek to use methods that are unethical just to secure a conviction to justify the money being spent on that office. So far Indecom has been blowing a lot of smoke, but we are yet to see the benefits of what we are paying for.

If all the actions of the police are justified based on court proceedings thus far, they we need not have Indecom, since the purpose of that office is to investigate unjustified abuse of the power of the police and bring those cops involved to books.

Despite the public outcry not a single cop has been successfully prosecuted by Indecom. ( Blame the DPP ??)

Its easier to send a cop to prison for taking a bribe, than it is to send a cop to prison for taking a life, why ?

Verdict, both the DPP and Indecom are failures and both need to throw their huge ego out the window and collaborate vs being at each others throat. Unfortunately the personalities of the two people leading the organisations will not allow for this to happen, which is sad.

Maybe its time for both of them to go.