Earl Witter’s Incompetence:

Like every­thing else in Jamaica the Office of Public Defender has been a colos­sal let-down for the Jamaican peo­ple. Like Air Jamaica, the Political Directorate, like the Justice System , The Education System and every stra­ta of National life, the Jamaican peo­ple have paid dear­ly but have got­ten lit­tle to noth­ing for their investment.

The Office of Public Defender’s Act:

Public Defender Earl Witter> DPP Paula Llewellyn

Many peo­ple have asked over the years ‚“how could Air Jamaica be hav­ing finan­cial prob­lems when the planes are always full”? I for one have trav­eled on Air Jamaica coach-class , of course, packed togeth­er like canned-sar­dines, so I see how that ques­tion could have been cred­i­bly posed.

The Answer to that ques­tion is sim­ple. There are International Standards per­tain­ing to the num­ber of employ­ees nec­es­sary for an Airline to oper­ate sol­vent per Air Plane. From the pur­chase of Air Planes to land­ing fees , fuel, mechan­ics , bag­gage han­dlers, etc. What caused Air Jamaica’s fail­ure has been the padding of the employ­ee rolls to the extent of over 100 per­sons per Air- Plane, beyond what ought to be.

Air Jamaica was basi­cal­ly used as a pig­gy-bank of patron­age to pay of polit­i­cal patron­age, and to buy votes. The same is true for the Urban Transport System, peo­ple were col­lect­ing salaries but nev­er had to show up for work in cas­es for years. When a com­pe­tent Manager was hired to get to the bot­tom of it, they slaugh­tered him on the com­pa­ny’s compound.

I say this to say, in every sec­tor of Jamaican life, there is over­load and bloat, there is no con­sid­er­a­tion for the sol­ven­cy of the nation and the Public Defender’s Act was exact­ly that, an over­load, anoth­er “eat a food office” .

If the pow­ers which cre­at­ed this inept dupli­ca­tion were seri­ous about defend­ing the pub­lic, they would have invest­ed in improv­ing the Justice System. This would include the office of the Director of Public Prosecution, which would ulti­mate­ly restore the trust of the peo­ple, that the sys­tem may be trust­ed to dis­pense Justice, which in turn would reduce crime and acts of revenge.

Three years after the Security Forces rout­ed Christopher Coke from his Tivoli Gardens read­out, Witter has not been able to con­clude and present a report to the peo­ple of the coun­try through the Parliament.

Yet Witter has found time to ally him­self with extrem­ists groups like Jamaicans for Justice to give aid and com­fort to Criminals. Witter has gone as far as to sug­gest that Police accounts of fatal encoun­ters with mem­bers of Jamaica’s urban ter­ror­ist groups are inac­cu­rate because, not enough Police Officers are get­ting shot.

Never mind that when Witter and Carolyn Gomez from the extrem­ist group (JFJ) are asleep, Police offi­cers are risk­ing their lives to keep them safe.

It is incum­bent on the peo­ple that they demand that this office be dis­band­ed and that all funds ear­marked for it, forth­with be used to improve oth­er areas of the Justice system.

Witter clear­ly lacks the nec­es­sary integri­ty and char­ac­ter to ful­fill the task he has been giv­en, at best he was a mediocre Lawyer, his dis­dain for Law Enforcement ren­ders him acute­ly unqual­i­fied for the post he now holds, he must be fired.