From Advocate Christopher Lakeman.
AS the writer of Ecclesiastes says, ‘There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under Heaven.’ Now is not a time for point scoring or political posturing, but it is a time for honesty.

Friendship or loyalties are not sufficient to stem comment on fundamental rights and political responsibility in the Home Affairs Department.

I have read with increasing concern of the management of the Home Affairs Department by its minister. I do not doubt her integrity or her record on human rights. I do have concerns at her management of a large department, where one of its services is in the throes of the largest inquiry since the States police have been in existence.

It would appear that she has only recently ‘had to’ pass over the political oversight of the historical abuse inquiry, despite being interviewed as far back as January. Sympathy that she (or indeed others) might be a witness, again, does not deflect from the grave concerns expressed to me by fellow lawyers and her former colleagues on the Home Affairs Committee at the way the inquiry has been handled.

The latest issue of the order regarding police detention was, for us, made more acute when she found it acceptable to tell the States that she did not know if the confusion about detention periods had percolated to members of the force. There is strong evidence that the police themselves believe (or at least last Friday believed) that they had unlimited powers of detention before charge.

As duty advocate this week at police HQ, this uncertainty is at best unhelpful, at worst a breach of one of the most fundamental rights.

Comparisons with terrorism cases or human right abuses in Zimbabwe directed at lawyers are not directly on point on the specifics of this legislation, but they are useful to show the concerns of responsible people, whether they be politicians, lawyers, the police or the US army, about the rights of those detained.

Also unanswered is the question of why the police have decided that once a person attends for interview – under caution – it is now general practice to arrest that person before interview. Then they are likely to be judged guilty in the eyes of the public before they have been charged. Can these people be assured a fair trial?

This is too important a department to be left to a captain who is so rarely at the helm and who fails to inspire many of the public with her version of a grasp of her responsibilities, even with the election looming.
79 Bath Street,
St Helier.