Fonte: Jamaicans For Justice

01.06.2006

Janice Allen Family goes to the Court of Appeal

On Monday June 5, 2006 the lawyers for Janice Allen’s family will appear before a panel of judges in the Court of Appeal. They will be asking the court to overturn the decision of the Supreme Court not to grant the application for leave to apply for Judicial Review of the case. This ground breaking application is asking that Ms. Millicent Forbes (Janice’s mother) be granted the right for her attorneys to argue before the Supreme Court that the trial of the policeman charged with the death of Janice, held in the Port Antonio Circuit Court in March 2004 be declared a nullity.

Janice was killed on April 14, 2000 by a bullet from a policeman’s gun. In April 2001 the DPP ruled that a policeman was to be charged with murder in her death. After a Preliminary Enquiry, which lasted 15 months, the policeman was committed for trial in the Home Circuit Court in November 2002. After further delays the matter finally came to trial in the Port Antonio Circuit Court on March 15th 2004. At the trial which lasted less than an hour, the Prosecution failed to present any evidence, relying mainly on the purported unavailability of a vital witness, a policeman who was said to be abroad on sick leave and unlikely to return to the island. The jury was instructed to return a not guilty verdict. It later was confirmed, by the Commissioner of Police, that the court had been misled as to the unavailability of this witness and he announced that he had launched an investigation into the matter. The DPP in a statement to the Ministry of Justice on the events of the case also said that “The Crown Counsel failed to follow standard procedures”.

Since that time the family, through its legal team of Richard Small and David Wong Ken has appeared twice in the Supreme Court seeking leave to apply for Judicial Review. Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe in chambers in November 2004, and a full panel of three judges in February 2005 denied them leave, though there was a strong dissenting judgement from Mr. Justice Roy Jones. Now the lawyers are requesting the Court of Appeal to grant leave for Judicial Review.

Ms. Forbes’ application for leave to apply for judicial review is based on the fact that the accused and/or his agents destroyed evidence in the case, sought to intimidate and bribe the witnesses and misled the prosecution as to the whereabouts of the key prosecution witness which led to the acquittal of the accused. These facts are uncontroverted and amount to clear evidence of fraud and collusion on the part of the accused and/or his agents to pervert the course of his trial. Based also on these facts there has been a clear abuse of the process of the court and a successful attempt to pervert the course of justice orchestrated by the accused and/or persons acting on his behalf, and demonstrated in the improper handling of the case by the police, the destruction of evidence, the threatening of witnesses, the attempted bribery of the family of the deceased, the intimidation and harassment of the family of the deceased and, finally, in the incorrect information given by the police to the prosecutor handling the case which caused him to offer no evidence against the accused. Ms Forbes’ attorneys will also be arguing that the court has the jurisdiction to set aside the verdict and cannot sit limply by and allow its processes to be so abused and the accused to benefit from his own wrongdoing.

The attorneys will also argue that this particular case is one which cries out for judicial intervention in order to prevent the terrible injustice which was unleashed not only on the family of the deceased and on the public at large but also on the integrity of the judicial system.

This ground breaking legal challenge has great significance for Janice’s family’s search for justice and even greater significance for the administration of justice in Jamaica.