THE CASE of Sheldon Adimoolah, which was reported in this newspaper last Friday, is not particularly unusual and, therefore, unlikely to stir a judicial head. Unless there was a public outcry, of which there was none.

But Mr Adimoolah's situation, or variations thereof, is of the kind of which there are too many and which serves to undermine confidence in Jamaica's justice system. It insists upon a call to accountability.

The basic facts, as they have emerged, are that in July 2005, Mr Adimoolah, a Trinidadian, was convicted in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's (RM) Court for attempting to smuggle cocaine into Jamaica. He was sentenced to five years in jail. About one month after his sentence, Mr Adimoolah filed an appeal.

Earlier this year, Mr Adimoolah wrote to the Court of Appeal, seeking to withdraw his appeal. He wished to serve out his sentence and just go home. Fair enough. If that was all.

Inconsistency

But whatever else might have been Mr Adimoolah's motivation, it seems that the snail's pace at which Jamaica's justice system moves, and the sheer bungling and incompetence that too often accompany it, made his case all the more worse.

For it emerged that the notes of evidence concerning Mr Adimoolah's case were not sent, and certainly not received, by the registry of the Court of Appeal until 10 days ago.

There appears to be some inconsistency, if not dispute, over precisely when Mr Adimoolah appealed. He suggested that it was within days of his conviction, but that it seemed not to have been lodged.

But even if we give credence and weight to the Department of Correctional Services' version that his notice was lodged in July 2007 and notification was received by the RM court a week later, much remains amiss. It took a year and a half for the magistrate's court to find the notes of evidence and for them to be sent to the Court of Appeal.

The cynic might say, not entirely without reason, that in the context of Jamaica, Mr Adimoolah has little to complain about; that, for him, justice has been swift - a mere year and a half for notes of a case to be transferred.

Time for accountability

After all, in the Pratt and Morgan case, which the Privy Council used as the basis for its five-year rule for inmates to be on death row before it becomes cruel and inhumane punishment, it took nearly a decade for court documents to move between the Supreme and Appeal courts and for a judgment to be written. And people have been known to have been forgotten in lock-ups for as long as two decades.

It is time, however, for people to be held accountable, starting with the Adimoolah case. Chief Justice Zaila McCalla, we hold, has a responsibility to determine who had stewardship of the files, why they could not be found, how, where and the circumstances under which they were discovered. Those responsible, including the magistrate if he or she was involved, should be appropriately sanctioned - and the public told.

There is a lot to be done to fix the justice system, but we have to start somewhere that is beyond talking.

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