Amnesty International Report 1999 - Jamaica

JAMAICA

More than 45 people remained under sentence of death at the end of the year. Six people scheduled to be hanged had their executions stayed. Corporal punishment laws were ruled to have lapsed. Prison conditions were harsh. Many people were killed by police in disputed circumstances.

Local government elections, originally scheduled for 1993, took place in September. The governing People's National Party, led by Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, won a majority of seats in all parish councils and the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation.

In January Jamaica's withdrawal as a State Party to the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) came into effect. This measure, which was taken to cut off an avenue of recourse for people sentenced to death, precludes all people claiming that Jamaican authorities have violated any of the rights guaranteed by the ICCPR from applying to the UN Human Rights Committee to seek redress.

In a series of cases submitted prior to January, the UN Human Rights Committee concluded that internationally protected rights of people who had been sentenced to death had not been respected. The Committee concluded that the failure to make legal counsel available during preliminary hearings to Clive Johnson and Conroy Levy, both of whom were charged with capital murder, violated their right to counsel. It also concluded that the death sentence imposed on Clive Johnson, who was 17 at the time of the murder, was void because of the prohibition on imposing a death sentence for crimes committed by someone under 18, and that his detention for more than seven years on death row violated his rights under the ICCPR. In a series of cases, the Committee also concluded that detaining people on death row in St Catherine's District Prison in cells for 23 hours per day without a mattress, bedding, furniture, natural light or plumbing, and in some cases failing to provide necessary medical treatment, violated the right of people deprived of their liberty to be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person.

More than 45 people remained under sentence of death at the end of the year. During the year, six men – Neville Lewis, Peter Blaine, Milton Montique, Dalton Daly, Leroy Lamey and Kevin Mykoo – were moved to death cells adjacent to the gallows to await imminent execution, despite the fact that all had petitions pending before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) alleging that their rights under the American Convention on Human Rights had been violated. All six received stays of execution from national courts pending the determination of constitutional motions which challenged, among other things, the validity of the time limits which the government purported to impose on the IACHR's consideration of cases filed by death row prisoners (see Amnesty International Report 1998). The constitutional motions and the IACHR's decisions on the petitions of the six men and on a challenge to the time limits, remained pending at the end of the year.

The death sentences of at least two men, Everton Morrison and Lansford James, were commuted to life imprisonment. Barrington Osborne, Samuel Lindsay and Henry McKoy had their death sentences quashed on appeal. Lansford James, Samuel Lindsay and Henry Mckoy had all been scheduled to hang in 1997 (see Amnesty International Report 1998).

In December in its decision on an appeal brought on behalf of Noel Samuda and Walford Ferguson, the Court of Appeal ruled that the corporal punishment laws had lapsed after the Second World War. Both men had been sentenced to be flogged with a tamarind switch in addition to terms of imprisonment.

Ill-treatment in prisons continued to be reported. For example, Michael Vincent, who reportedly witnessed an incident in which inmates in St Catherine's District Prison were killed and others were injured, was allegedly subjected to repeated assaults, threats and intimidation by prison guards.

In March the findings and conclusions were published of the Board of Enquiry into the August 1997 disturbances in St Catherine's District Prison and Kingston's General Penitentiary, during which 16 inmates were killed and at least 40 were injured (see Amnesty International Report 1998). The Board of Enquiry concluded that the initial cause which triggered the events was the interpretation by guards and inmates of an announcement by the Commission of Corrections of his intention to distribute condoms to guards and prisoners as part of an effort to control the spread of hiv/aids. A subsequent walk-out by warders, aggravations caused by privileges afforded to some inmates and "an end to tolerance of homosexual prisoners by heterosexuals" were identified as secondary causes. The Board of Enquiry's recommendations included the building of a new prison and a centre to house people detained on remand to alleviate overcrowding; the provision of training on issues such as riot control and conflict resolution for staff; and the creation of a structure to ensure the airing of grievances without reprisals for inmates.

Conditions in some police lock-ups, places of detention and prisons were so severely overcrowded and insanitary that they amounted to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

In October the mother of Agana Barrett was awarded compensation as constitutional redress for the inhuman and degrading treatment of her son who was one of three men who died in 1992, after being held for about two days in a 2.4m by 2.1m cell with 16 other people at the Constant Spring Police Station (see Amnesty International Report 1993). They had not been provided with food or water and some of the men drank their sweat or urine to alleviate their thirst. An Appeals Court judge who ruled on the case reportedly recommended that no more than three people be kept in a cell in police lock-ups. An appeal against the court's refusal to grant additional compensation for infringement of Agana Barrett's right to life was reportedly pending at the end of the year.

There were continued reports of fatal shootings by law enforcement officials in disputed circumstances. Bertland Morrison was shot by a police officer in August. Police reports allegedly claimed that he was shot after he attacked an officer who was walking by. Eyewitnesses, however, reportedly claimed that he was killed by an officer following an earlier argument and that a gun was planted on him. Murder charges were subsequently brought against the officer.

Proceedings continued against the officers charged in connection with the fatal shooting in 1997 of Rohan Fraser in Tivoli Gardens. In August an inquest jury found that no one was criminally responsible for the deaths of a six-year-old boy and three women who were shot during riots involving exchanges of fire with the security forces which followed Rohan Fraser's death (see Amnesty International Report 1998). Following the inquest, which heard evidence over a four-month period, many questions remained unanswered, including the identities of those who fired the fatal shots and who fired from the defence force helicopter.

Amnesty International urged the government to re-ratify the Optional Protocol to the ICCPR. It called on the government not to carry out the six scheduled executions and expressed concern that executing these men while their petitions to the IACHR were pending would contravene Jamaica's obligations as a State Party to the American Convention on Human Rights. The organization urged the government to repeal the instructions purporting to impose time limits on the IACHR's consideration of cases brought by people under sentence of death and to ensure that all people in Jamaica, including those sentenced to death, have full and effective recourse to petition the IACHR if they believe that their rights under the Convention have been violated.