To all Jamaicans, at home and in the diaspora, I wish you a Happy New Year.
For many people, the celebration of a new year is a symbol of hope for our future. The start of a new year is an opportunity to focus on what lies ahead, while taking into account the year we have just gone through, and where we are today.
2022 was a very difficult year for many Jamaicans. Our people have endured a major spike in the cost of living, without much help to cushion the crisis. We have seen levels of violent crime that have us living in fear and sap the hope of our people. We experienced restive months in recent times, with the uncertainties among our public sector workers as to their pay arrangements.
Repeated States of Public Emergency have been declared across various parishes, as the Government uses these State of Emergency as an ongoing crime fighting strategy. This has been going on for five years now, but the murder rate in the country has continued to rise.
Under the Constitution, a State of Emergency is intended to be the last resort mechanism to protect the State from subversion. By allowing extended periods of detention of any person without charge or access to the courts, a State of Emergency suspends many of the most fundamental rights and freedoms of our citizens.
The Supreme Court has on two occasions ruled against the Government in their recent use of the SOEs, and the Government’s appeals of those rulings have not yet been heard by the Court of Appeal. With this pall of constitutional doubt hanging over the Government’s use of States of Emergency, it has been my solemn duty not to support any extensions of these States of Emergency when they are brought to Parliament.
Jamaica needs a strategy which does not violate the Constitution; one which tackles the root causes of the problem in a way which can be supported by all well-thinking Jamaicans, including the Opposition.
It is my hope for 2023, that the Government will embrace a more collaborative approach to address the issue of crime. Jamaica needs a balanced approach to our national security crisis, using both tactical law enforcement and well-designed social intervention.
The police have said that there are approximately 300 violence producers. If that is so, our efforts should be geared towards urgently putting in place a legal procedure for targeting them, without infringing on the basic rights of millions of ordinary Jamaicans.