‘DPP right to put Archie in his place’

PROMINENT and outspoken attorney Israel Khan SC, has criticised Chief Justice Ivor Archie for his critique of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

“The CJ was totally out of place to condemn the DPP in relation to contributing towards the demise and the collapse of the criminal justice system,” Khan said when contacted for comment on Sunday.

Khan was weighing in on DPP Roger Gaspard’s eight-page letter in which he responded the Chief Justice’s contention during his virtual address at the opening of the law term, that the criminal justice system was brought to “near collapse” because the Office of the DPP had filed only 12 indictments in a year.

Gaspard SC, described Archie’s contention as “Spectacularly disingenuous and misleading.” Gaspard said, at this time, stakeholders could not afford to concern themselves “with plumage preening, self-congratulatory postures, or with becoming too enamoured with foggy statistics and cloudy ‘clearance ratios.’”

He also said the condition of the criminal justice system was the result of many factors which had been allowed to fester for some time – and threw the ball back in the Judiciary’s court over the reneging on an agreement to file indictments during the pandemic with bound, hard-copy files; the non-appointment of criminal judges to serve in the ten assizes; and the inability to deal with hundreds of pending cases, some over ten years old. Khan told Newsday he agrees with Gaspard.

He said the DPP’s comments in defending his department were spot on and pointed out that Gaspard did not blame the Chief Justice for the collapse, but said that different departments, a lack of resources and many other factors were contributing to the collapse.

“I am in total agreement with the DPP for reminding the public that all the Chief Justice is concerned with, is singing his own praises and praising himself, when it is he himself who contributed to the demise of the criminal justice system and I don’t wish to identify the problem. The whole country knows the problem,” Khan said. He urged politicians to put more resources into the Judiciary and called for more criminal judges. Khan said the problem is holistic and a number of issues contributed to the collapse of the criminal justice system included: corrupt and inefficient police officers prosecuting criminals and not gathering the information;

Lawyers who keep asking for adjournment after adjournment and the magistrates who are either afraid of these lawyers or could not care less and kept adjourning matters; magistrates who come to court and sit from 9 am to 12 noon before going home yet collecting $60,000 per month for working half day; and poor people involved in petty crimes who turn into hardened criminals when put into Remand Yard to mix with seasoned criminals.

“So we can’t really blame one institution or one person,” Khan said, adding, “But I am happy the DPP come out strong and independent and put the Chief Justice in his place.” He however noted that the DPP too appeared to be “flexing his muscles” and was “more concerned with his own image and his own self rather than the Office of the Chief Justice.”