The (indecom) Act A Reckless Law Which Kills Citizens And Police Officers Alike…

The Joint Select Committee of Parliament decid­ed that (indecom)the Agency tasked with over­sight of the Police Department. Military and Corrections Department should itself be sub­ject to .…
Well..
Oversight..
Well what do you know, what a Novel con­cept? You mean that final­ly the group of knuck­le-heads debat­ing this issue final­ly had an epiphany? You mean they are final­ly start­ing to get the sim­ple con­cept of checks and bal­ances? I mean even the Politicians are held to some degree of account­abil­i­ty, some­thing which nev­er exist­ed before, why not (inde­com)?

After the Contractor General’s ACT was passed many peo­ple includ­ing this writer thought , “Oh great final­ly some degree of account­abil­i­ty”. Naturally many politi­cians past and present were not hap­py with the vig­i­lance and aggres­sive ded­i­ca­tion Greg Christie the first Contractor General brought to the job.
Many were hap­py to see the back of Christie. For the aver­age man on the street Christie was a mod­ern day Savior who saved tax-pay­ers much mon­ey which oth­er­wise would have been siphoned off through illic­it and cor­rupt prac­tices in the con­tracts awards process.
Just last week a mem­ber of the Governing Administration vent­ed his frus­tra­tion with the Office of Contractor General. He claimed that the long delay of con­tracts being reviewed by the OCG places the Administration in a posi­tion in which it can­not car­ry out its man­date to cre­ate jobs. 

A rea­son­able argu­ment to make. Yet it was the cor­rupt prac­tices of the politi­cians which made the Office Of Contractor General a neces­si­ty in the first place.

The (inde­com) Act became a real­i­ty because of police offi­cers mis­deeds, as well as mem­bers of the Military and Corrections Department. Many mem­bers past and present are opposed to the Agency under­stand­ably because of their affil­i­a­tions with either of the three Agencies.
This writer is not opposed to (inde­com) the agency . I oppose the oper­a­tional tenets of the Act and I cer­tain­ly am opposed to the Commissioner him­self whom I fun­da­men­tal­ly believe should not have the job as head of (inde­com). Those who read my blogs are well aware of my dis­like for Terrence Williams, not because he heads (inde­com) but because he is on a per­son­al cru­sade to persecute .
I per­son­al­ly do not care about cor­rupt cops get­ting their just deserts. In the short ten years

I spent in the JCF I was instru­men­tal in the pros­e­cu­tion and impris­on­ment of three cor­rupt cops , whom I was hap­py to see leave the department.
So I’m cer­tain­ly not an apol­o­gist as some would imag­ine because I do not sup­port the whole­sale per­se­cu­tion of good Cops.
There are some peo­ple who are men­tal­ly inca­pable of mov­ing past cor­rupt cops and embrac­ing the val­ue of good offi­cers to society.
Those peo­ple can­not be changed, they don’t want to change. The bad cop argu­ment is a per­fect anchor, one from which they have no desire to be unhitched.

The (inde­com) Act is the brain-child of the abbre­vi­at­ed Bruce Golding Administration . The law was passed after pub­lic out­cry reached fever pitch about police abuse and extra-judi­cial killings. The truth of the mat­ter is that so called Human-Rights advo­ca­cy and lob­by­ing efforts were more to be cred­it­ed for the laws exis­tence than mas­sive police abuse. Nevertheless a pha­lanx of advo­ca­cy groups emerged all arrayed against the police and demand­ing change. Jamaicans For Justice(JFJ) head­ed by Carolyn Gomes a pedi­atric Doctor, Families against State Terrorism (FAST) head­ed my Yvonne McCall Sobers were just two of the advo­ca­cy groups to seri­ous­ly lob­by the Golding Administration for over­sight of the police.

Both groups had seri­ous back­ing from International Human Rights Agencies to include

the London based Amnesty International and the Washington DC based Inter American Commission on Human Rights. Gomes and (JFJ) were instru­men­tal in pre­sent­ing false , unsub­stan­ti­at­ed and in many cas­es flawed and dis­cred­it­ed infor­ma­tion to her han­dlers in Washington DC about police killings.
INDECOM was born with much input from (FAST) and (JFJ) , how­ev­er there were many more anti-police groups with sig­nif­i­cant pow­er which pushed for a law which would basi­cal­ly shack­le the police once and for all. The Norman Manley Law School and the Island’s Bar Association were instru­men­tal in hav­ing a law passed which would effec­tive­ly send crime sky-rocketing .
The Administration did not both­er to con­sult or con­sid­er the Police , Military or the Corrections Department before for­mu­lat­ing and pass­ing the law. INDECOM was born and Carolyn Gomes was award­ed a National honor. 
It did not take long for the Nation’s crim­i­nals to fig­ure out that the Police were now a paper tiger.

Gomes has since stepped down after much scruti­ny by the Government of the Group’s finan­cial records

and con­duct. The alliance between (jfj) and (inde­com) was well known, at least to this writer. This pissed off police offi­cers who

demand­ed that Terrence Williams the head of (inde­com) be fired after he attend­ed an anti-police press con­fer­ence with (jfj). The Government did not acqui­esce to the Police’s demand but the well of good­will was already poi­soned between the police and the over­sight agency.
The Commissioner of (inde­com) want­ed and demand­ed more and more pow­er to go after Police, this led to a bat­tle with the office of the Director of Public Prosecution. Williams claimed that the DPP was not doing enough to pros­e­cute police transgressions.
Never mind that Williams had the option to grand­stand but the DPP is oblig­at­ed to present tan­gi­ble evi­dence to a court of law or face unlaw­ful pros­e­cu­tion backlash.
It’s impor­tant to note that the (DPP) has the pow­er to charge police offi­cers with a crime to quell pub­lic out­cry even with­out the req­ui­site evi­dence nec­es­sary to con­vict. Literally every police shoot­ing in Jamaica gen­er­ates out­cry from some quar­ter or another.

The tug-o-war end­ed up before Parliament with the DPP sup­port­ed by the Police call­ing for over­sight of (inde­com) . Friends of (inde­com) are ene­mies of the police and they did not aban­don Williams as he pushed for more pow­er to per­se­cute police while notably want­i­ng to have no over­sight of (inde­com). Essentially Williams want­ed to head a super Agency vot­ed into office by no one, but with vast unchecked powers.

Citizens’ Action for Principles and Integrity (CAPI) says any over­sight body for the Independent Commission of Investigations (Indecom), will ren­der it impo­tent. A joint-select com­mit­tee of par­lia­ment exam­in­ing the Indecom Act has pro­posed an over­sight enti­ty for the inves­tiga­tive and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al body. Indecom was set up as an inde­pen­dent body tasked to inves­ti­gate mis­con­duct by mem­bers of the police force. Co-Convenor of CAPI Dennis Meadows argues that Indecom, as a com­mis­sion of Parliament, already has par­lia­men­tary over­sight in addi­tion to judi­cial scruti­ny with its financed and oper­a­tions falling with­in the ambit of the Auditor General and the Contractor General. respec­tive­ly. National Security Minister Peter Bunting has stat­ed that there was a dan­ger in con­cen­trat­ing as much pow­er as

the act has done in the hands of the Commissioner of Indecom. At the time Human rights lob­by group, Jamaicans for Justice said it was research­ing the pro­pos­al that the Independent Commission of Investigations (Indecom) should have an inter­nal over­sight. This lat­est pro­pos­al from par­lia­men­tar­i­ans fol­lows ear­li­er objec­tions to Indecom hav­ing an exter­nal over­sight. In a state­ment the JFJ says it con­tin­ues to engage in robust advo­ca­cy at the pol­i­cy lev­el to pro­tect and pro­mote the human rights of all per­sons in Jamaica. Central to that advo­ca­cy has been the issue of police over­sight. To this end, JFJ sub­mit­ted its com­ments on the pro­pos­al for over­sight of Indecom, to the joint-select com­mit­tee of par­lia­ment review­ing the Indecom Act. The JFJ says its recent sub­mis­sion address­es the issue of exter­nal over­sight of Indecom, as has been sug­gest­ed by some par­ties. The lob­by group says such addi­tion­al exter­nal over­sight of Indecom would be inap­pro­pri­ate and dam­ag­ing to Indecom’s inde­pen­dence, poten­tial­ly revers­ing the pos­i­tive gains that have been made.

In the end the Joint select Committee of Parliament decid­ed that more over­sight was nec­es­sary as we report­ed here and cor­rect­ly so.
At the time the deci­sion was made the sole Jamaica Labor Party Member of the com­mit­tee in atten­dance Delroy Chuck an anti-police lawyer vot­ed not to have over­sight of (inde­com).
In sum­ma­ry (inde­com) was cre­at­ed by the Labor Party .
Dennis Meadows a JLP Senator and head of (Capi) want­ed no over­sight of (inde­com).
Delroy Chuck anoth­er JLP Senator vot­ed for no over­sight of (inde­com).
We have writ­ten about oth­er Labor par­ty aspi­rants here who have demosntra­bly shown a dis­dain for police offi­cers and the rule of law.
We need to know how many more mem­bers of the Labor Party wants unfet­tered pow­ers for an over­sight agency which is not required to face Jamaica’s crim­i­nals. As a com­men­ta­tor I have been stri­dent against the PNP Administration for what I per­ceive to be incom­pe­tence, cor­rup­tion, and a host of oth­er malfeasance.
In the inter­est of fair­ness how­ev­er it is impor­tant to lay blame for the Island crime sit­u­a­tion square­ly where it belongs, on both polit­i­cal parties.