Bar Association Renews Concerns After Judge Orders Social Media Blackout In X6 Murder Case

The Jamaican Bar Association is renew­ing what it calls long­stand­ing con­cerns about the defi­cien­cies in the jus­tice sys­tem and the respon­si­ble exer­cise of free­dom of expression.

The con­cerns coin­cide with this week’s rul­ing by high court judge Lloyd Hibbert for a social media black­out in the so called X6 mur­der case. The judge made the rul­ing after Deborah Martin, the lawyer for accused killer Patrick Powell com­plained that a series of social media com­ments was mak­ing out her client to be guilty.

This after­noon, the bar asso­ci­a­tion would not com­ment on the devel­op­ment in court, say­ing it does not have all the facts. However, the asso­ci­a­tion says there is every rea­son for accused per­sons, par­tic­u­lar­ly those not on bail, as well as the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies, to be aggriev­ed by the delays that rav­age the deliv­ery of justice.

“The con­sti­tu­tion­al right to free­dom of expres­sion, and the right to crit­i­cise our pub­lic insti­tu­tions, belong to us all as cit­i­zens in this demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­ety,” said asso­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Sherry Ann McGregor. The asso­ci­a­tion fur­ther says the fun­da­men­tal right to free­dom of speech can only be cur­tailed to the extent that it prej­u­dices the rights and free­doms of oth­ers. “Although we believe that the pub­lic and vic­tims’ fam­i­lies have the right to speak out about the most unfor­tu­nate delays they expe­ri­ence, we also urge them to be respect­ful in their protests and inter­views and to refrain from mak­ing accu­sa­tions of cor­rup­tion by pub­lic offi­cials in the absence of reli­able evi­dence,” McGregor fur­ther said. She said the wheels of jus­tice often move slow­ly for a vari­ety of rea­sons not­ing that the slow pace of civ­il and crim­i­nal cas­es has been dis­cussed at length in all forms of media and by numer­ous stake­hold­ers, includ­ing the Association.

“Discussing and find­ing solu­tions to these impor­tant issues should always be encour­aged, not sti­fled, with­out play­ing the blame game,” she insist­ed. McGregor has again called for the urgent imple­men­ta­tion of sev­er­al rec­om­men­da­tions made in 2007 by the Professor Barry Chevannes-chaired Jamaican Justice System Reform Task Force. The Bar says it has also pro­posed a short­list of 12 goals to the min­is­ters of jus­tice and finance in December 2014, includ­ing increas­ing the num­ber of judges and sup­port staff and greater reliance and use of avail­able technology.