Editorial | Prioritise corruption matters

Justice David Batts’ injunction on Friday barring the Integrity Commission (IC) from laying corruption-related charges against government minister Andrew Wheatley until the resolution of Dr Wheatley’s challenge of the IC’s findings in an investigation of his finances is, on its face, hardly surprising.

For ordinary folk who are not steeped in the law, the principle of natural justice is engaged in this matter. It would seem unfair, if not oppressive, for Dr Wheatley, the science and technology minister, to be asked to defend the criminal charges, with the emotional and economic costs attached to that exercise, even as he asks the court, as is allowable in law, to pronounce on the fairness of the process that led to those charges.

Justice Batts’ injunction, which gave Dr Wheatley 14 days to file his substantive claims seeking judicial review of the IC’s processes and findings, apparently came after lawyers for the commission declined to voluntarily give an undertaking that charges would not be laid against the minister until after the judicial issue was settled.

For the avoidance of doubt, these observations are founded in what this newspaper considers to be basic societal principles of fairness and due process - how individuals in a community would expect to be treated. They do not pretend, and neither should they be interpreted to be, declarations of what exists in any specific law or in the findings of any court.

However, in the absence of a special division of Jamaica’s Supreme Court that deals exclusively with matters of public law, the Wheatley issue further highlights the need, as previously suggested by The Gleaner, for Chief Justice Bryan Sykes to make corruption-related cases a matter of priority, deserving of urgent attention. The chief justice should instruct all judges, and the staff who help to create the judicial rosters, towards this end.

INTUITIVE UNDERSTANDING

This position is rooted, like the principle of natural justice, in an intuitive understanding held by the vast majority of Jamaicans of the corrosive effect of corruption and the perception thereof.

When people believe that the institutions of government and governance are corrupt, this erodes trust, weakens the potential to build national consensus, and undermines the ability of the State to function effectively in the interest of all citizens. Unfortunately, upward of 80 per cent of Jamaicans believe that they live in a corrupt society, and the majority don’t trust their leaders and key institutions of government.

Should anyone misread, deliberately or otherwise, these proposals, the call, neither now nor previously, is not about the investigation of allegations of corruption. If any such claim were to be made of this newspaper’s argument, it would be tantamount to the deliberate creation, and chopping down, of defenceless straw men. Unless there was a lapse into a Don Quixote moment.

Under Jamaica’s common law system, criminal charges against people remain allegations unless and until they are proven otherwise in courts of law. Matters only come before the courts after a law-enforcement body, or specifically defined agency like the Integrity Commission, has investigated a presumed offence or complaint and determines that charges should be preferred

CHALLENGES

In the midst of this process, the protagonists in the affair can raise interlocutory or other challenges relating to conduct of the proceedings or the legal basis of the underlying case. Urgency attends almost every legal matter but more so in corruption-related cases for two reasons. Lengthy delays in resolving matters deny justice to the accused.

But it is not only the accused person who suffers. Society does also. Lingering, unresolved accusations of corruption, and the perceptions they reinforce, gnaw at and disintegrate the fabric and foundation that underpin the State.

At the same time, while The Gleaner fully respects the right of all individuals to due process and natural justice, we are not oblivious to the Integrity Commission’s questions about whether a flurry of cases by public officials challenging the IC’s jurisdiction on several fronts was a concerted effort to entangle it in legal proceedings to weaken the commission’s ability to undertake its mandate.

Even if that is not the case, one way to ensure that the court isn’t unwittingly used to undermine the effectiveness of the IC or other anti-corruption agencies is by ensuring that corruption matters have a level of priority in the judicial system.