Rosemarie Sant
Professor Emeritus Ramesh Deosaran says while the petition by Roman Catholic Archbishop Joseph Harris to pardon remand prisoners is “worthy of consideration”, he believes “justice, due process and the fairness doctrine will be subverted if the victim is left out of this pardoning process.”
Deosaran said a “well integrated, evidenced-based policy approach is now necessary to help fix the system.”
Commenting on the call by the Archbishop Harris for Remand Yard prisoners worthy of pardon and mercy to be freed, Deosaran said while “Catholicism is based on forgiveness and mercy, justice, due process and the fairness doctrine will be subverted if the victim is unduly left out of this pardoning process.”
Deosaran, who in 2013 headed a Prisons Committee which presented a report to the former government, said: “For too long the judicial system has left victims and their families voiceless and invisible.”
He said this has resulted in “a society frustrated and even angry with the sentencing and judicial systems.”
He believes victims of crime have for far too long remained as “forgotten sufferers” and for this reason the previous Pope declared that forgiveness is not necessarily justice.
Deosaran said there are flaws in the judicial system which must be addressed.
“The most fundamental question of all is: why are these inmates lodged in the Remand Yard for so many years, often for a period exceeding the maximum for their alleged offence? Who is responsible?
“If this question is not properly dealt with and answered, after this pardoned batch another batch will quickly arise and the deleterious structural and process conditions of the Remand Yard will remain,” he said.
He is suggesting as an alternative having “quickened trials for all inmates, not only for those with the maximum sentence criterion.” The bottom line, he said, is that “it is a shame to have about 60 per cent of your prison population in the Remand Yard.”
Simply pardoning inmates does not bring closure, he said, as they will still be viewed as guilty by the community. If they are pardoned and freed they will never get the opportunity to answer the charge in court and “the public will never know whether they are truly innocent or guilty.”
From the community’s point of view, they may “still appear guilty.”
Noting that what is being asked is different from pardoning convicted prisoners, Deosaran said that does not mean he is dismissing the petition by Archbishop Harris.
“It is worthy of consideration but with conditionalities,” he said. “The victim must be included in the process.”
Deosaran said “the application of mercy will be better enabled with the voice of the victim or family.”
While the view is that prisoners on remand suffer because of inhumane prison conditions, Deosaran pointed out that “crime victims have suffered too.”
“They suffer from inadequate and short-changed representation through state prosecution as well as required social services support,” he said.
Khan: Time to start tackling backlog
Inspector of Prisons Daniel Khan said the Archbishop’s suggestion about dealing with remandees who are in custody longer than had they been sentenced should be a priority.
“Whether it is done by discontinuance by the Director of Public Prosecutions, by guilty plea and sentence, or by a blanket dismissal of their matters is another question,” he said.
Khan said regardless of the machinery, it is time to start tackling the backlog. He suggested introduction of a Section 35 so that in matters that have not been tried in a reasonable time, at least seven years, the accused become entitled to bail,
“This will significantly decrease over-crowding in the prison,” he said,
“To address the current backlog, the only solutions are a massive guilty plea project, or some sort of amnesty, or dismissing matters due to unreasonable delay.”
By declaring 2016 a year of mercy Archbishop Harris had “succinctly captured the essence of not only what we as a society should focus on but, more particularly, our criminal justice system,” Khan said.