Assistant Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington may have conceded that he does not have the empirical evidence for his claim.

We, however, are not about to reject his assertion of accused persons conning the legal system to get information about witnesses against them so as to have these witnesses bumped off. This, after all, is Jamaica, where the murder of witnesses is not an uncommon fact.

What Mr Ellington, speaking at the Jamaica Employers' Federation forum last Thursday, brought to the table, is a specific method, which should prompt a review of methods for the handling of case files so as to protect the safety of witnesses while protecting the rights of people accused of crimes.

The scam, as outlined by the assistant commissioner, is facilitated by the snail's pace of Jamaica's justice system, which means that a determined person is likely to have a long time to track down and kill people who can give evidence against him or her.

The strategy is this: You are accused of a crime and have been arrested and charged, so you get a good lawyer to represent you and apply for bail. Having been bailed, you fire that lawyer, who in turn is obligated to turn over the case files to you. Those files usually have the names and addresses of all the witnesses against you.

Witnesses' safety not guaranteed

Said Mr Ellington: " ... They get the files, they have the names and addresses of all witnesses, and they have 10 years to find them and kill them."

With more than 1,500 murders and tens of thousands of other reported crimes in Jamaica annually, it would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to put in place a witness-protection programme to guarantee the safety of all the persons who could be threatened because they could give evidence.

Neither is it practical, and perhaps even unconstitutional, to completely withhold witness information from accused persons and their lawyers. Which, of course, is one reason why we recently suggested a debate on a secret-evidence law in the face of the House of Lords' recent ruling against convictions using this method.

Clearly, the answer would not be an attempt to redact basic information or to depend solely on the integrity of defence lawyers, who, after all, must have a privileged relationship with their clients.

Something more robustly effective is demanded, including measures to bring a level of stability to the society so as to rebuild public confidence and to create the basis for 'normal' policing. In that regard, we look forward to the anti-crime initiatives to be unveiled by Prime Minister Golding this week.

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