The Tribune

WHEN the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention reported on issues affecting the criminal justice system in this country, and with the facilities where people are locked up, we wrote that it was reiterating problems we already knew about.

And today, we see Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis saying the same thing, noting “I don’t need a UN report to tell me some issues we have and we are addressing these issues as best we can”.

Good for him. Well done for acknowledging the work of the group and, frankly, for acknowledging the evidence of his own eyes and ears.

There were worries over people being beaten for confessions, there were issues with the bail system, problems with the facilities at the detention centre, arrests without warrants, detainees being held longer than 48 hours without a court extension and so on. Valid concerns, all.

Which begs the question what was National Security Minister Wayne Munroe talking about when he dismissed the report, if his own leader recognises the concerns himself.

After the report, Mr Munroe said the experts did not provide proof of many of their accusations about the justice system.

As for matters such as forced confessions, he cast doubt on the group by saying “My question would be, who is giving them this alert? If it is the person who is arrested, that’s not an actual responsible way to go about critiquing persons.”

He asked for proof of people being arrested on outdated warrants, he said the report had inconsistencies, he talked of the evidential threshold to prove whether someone was beaten… it is fair to say he was not openly accepting of the findings.

He went so far as to tell Bahamians to trust law enforcement and not the “adverse” report findings, saying “if you have to choose who you believe, you do yourself a disservice if you choose to believe an adverse report against the very persons who you will call when somebody is at your door, who you will call when you hear gunshots in the night, who you will call when you feel threatened. So, when you decide whose account to believe, I just want you to take into account that the prisoner, the criminal, would always like you to silence your watchdog.”

Should we, then, choose not to believe the Prime Minister who has acknowledged that there are indeed concerns.

Mr Davis, for his part, said “we need to address it” but added that “we are a country of limited resources”.

He said that we “are doing what we can within the limits of our resources”.

Some of those criticisms may not necessarily be an issue of resources, however.

Forced confessions are not down to resources. Arrests without warrant should not be a resource issue – you have a warrant or you do not. Visits to detainees from relatives were possible before COVID, so if we are past the pandemic as we are seemingly told, such visits ought to be possible again.

Some of the issues absolutely do require more resources – for more courts and judges to speed up cases, for improvements to detention facilities, perhaps for more thorough camera installations in police stations to capture any potential abuse and record it for evidence.

But first thing first, the criticisms themselves have to be taken seriously.

Mr Davis is correct to recognise the issues, and to say that we need to address them.

Mr Munroe is wrong to dismiss the issues, and signal blanket support when we know that some police officers do the wrong thing – and those officers who do the right thing do not need to have their good name tarnished by those who do not.

So, Mr Munroe, your leader has spoken. What do you plan to do to address these concerns? After all, your leader has said we “need” to do something. What are you going to do?

We look forward to your response.