DPP Blasts Legislative Blockers Of Cybercrime Law

Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn has blast­ed lawyers with seats in Parliament, who she says are stand­ing in the

way of leg­isla­tive changes urgent­ly need­ed to pros­e­cute cyber-crimes.

Llewellyn says the present arrange­ments for tack­ling crime per­pet­u­at­ed online through com­put­ers are out of date and not in keep­ing with tech­no­log­i­cal advances, giv­en the dif­fi­cul­ty in secur­ing con­vic­tions. “In order to prove a case, the pros­e­cu­tor has to prove the case beyond rea­son­able doubt … and we can only prove the case if we present evi­dence that is avail­able, cogent, reli­able and admis­si­ble,” the DPP said as she addressed the third annu­al Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism Conference, which wrapped up in Kingston on Wednesday.

Llewellyn said new leg­is­la­tion need­ed to fight crim­i­nal activ­i­ty through com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed evi­dence is being pilot­ed through Parliament by Justice Minister Mark Golding, but is meet­ing with stiff resis­tance from those who may have a vest­ed inter­est. “It is not hav­ing an easy pas­sage in Parliament because, clear­ly, on both sides of the House — Upper and Lower House — you have my wor­thy mem­bers of the defence bar who unfor­tu­nate­ly, I believe, may or may not be under­go­ing, not an attack of chik‑V but some­thing almost as dan­ger­ous — it’s called myopia,” the DPP said on the final day of the three-day confab.

She out­lined the dif­fi­cul­ty in using com­put­er-gen­er­at­ed evi­dence, say­ing pros­e­cu­tors are required to prove that the com­put­er from which the evi­dence was col­lect­ed was work­ing at the time the crime was com­mit­ted. She called for a change in the law that would make it eas­i­er to secure con­vic­tions, not­ing that oth­er coun­tries have moved far ahead of Jamaica. “In most oth­er coun­tries and also in the Caribbean, amend­ments have been done years ago, where it is a pre­sump­tion that the com­put­er is in good work­ing order … and if the defence is say­ing oth­er­wise, then the evi­den­tial bur­den shifts to them to prove that the com­put­er was not,” Llewellyn said. She called on audi­tors and com­pli­ance offi­cers in finan­cial insti­tu­tions to be advo­cates in the cause to get leg­is­la­tors on board to pass laws that will help in the fight against mon­ey laun­der­ing and ter­ror­ism financing.

She was not defin­i­tive in the over­all effect of the out­dat­ed laws but insist­ed that anec­do­tal evi­dence indi­cates that it is prov­ing to be a major bur­den on finan­cial inves­ti­ga­tions and an imped­i­ment to secur­ing con­vic­tions. http://​jamaica​-glean​er​.com/​g​l​e​a​n​e​r​/​2​0​1​4​1​2​1​2​/​b​u​s​i​n​e​s​s​/​b​u​s​i​n​e​s​s​5​.​h​tml
PUBLISHERS NOTE:

At this con­fer­ence we heard from two high­ly placed Government Officials on some issues which are pre­vent­ing and per­vert­ing the course of Justice in the Island Nation. In a pre­vi­ous Article Deputy Commissioner of Police Glenmore Hinds berat­ed lawyers for stand­ing in the way of leg­is­la­tion which would make going after crim­i­nals easier. 
We also heard from Paula Lewellyn the Nation’s chief prosecutor(DPP.
We should bear in mind that Ms. Llewellyn is a Lawyer, as such it is fair to con­clude she has no ani­mus toward the legal profession.

The truth of the mat­ter is that the issue of Law Enforcement/​or more appro­pri­ate­ly the lack there­of , is, and has always been ham­pered by myr­i­ad issues,not the least of which is the issue of con­flicts of interest.
For years after leav­ing Law-Enforcement I have spo­ken out and writ­ten about how this absolute­ly cor­rodes the process of the rule of law and ade­quate dis­pen­sa­tion of Justice.
We begin by com­ing to an under­stand­ing, as artic­u­lat­ed by these two pub­lic offi­cials, that some leg­is­la­tors are oth­er­wise vest­ed in active legal prac­tices to which they have fidu­cia­ry interests.
Legislators dou­ble as defense coun­sel and legislators.
Some of them are engaged in crim­i­nal conduct.
Every year numer­ous amounts of com­plaints are lodged to the Jamaican Bar Asscociation about unscrupu­lous actions on the part of some of its mem­bers. Some of the com­plaints include, but are not con­fined to lawyers using devi­ous means to fleece clients of their hard earned mon­ey. Many crit­ics believe lawyers are involved in far more seri­ous crimes. 
Some of these very lawyers are parliamentarians . 
This is the bot­tle-neck which cre­ates the prob­lem these two offi­cials are com­plain­ing about.
Unscrupulous pros­ti­tutes of the law, who use what is a hon­or­able call­ing to enrich them­selves, destroy­ing the sys­tem in the process.
I am unsure how the coun­try will get reform when the peo­ple who are sup­posed to write reform lan­guage for new leg­is­la­tion are opposed to change.
What I do know is that change must occur.….