By Robert A. Emmanuel
With Parliament rushing to address a major loophole in the 2017 Criminal Prosecutions Service Act, attorney-at-law Wendel Robinson said he will be seeking significant damages from the government on behalf of a rape-accused client.
Robinson, the former commissioner of police, shook the justice system to its core when a judge ruled in his favour in relation to a habeas corpus filing challenging the detention of his client on the grounds that the police did not get express approval from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) to file charges.
“The same person who was released immediately by the court because the charge was a nullity, we have filed for damages and the damages is going to be astronomical because it was over six months that he was remanded in custody,” he said on Observer AM yesterday.
Last week, the government sought to remedy the situation through a bill proposed to retrospectively approve all charges laid by police without the express agreement of the DPP.
However, Robinson noted that the bill currently before Parliament has yet to become law (as it still needs to be passed by the Senate) and therefore any person affected by the current legislation could still potentially file for damages against the government, especially if they have already served their time in prison under the 2017 law.
“In respect of persons who would have already served time under the nullified legislation, I am doubtful that even giving it retrospective effect now can validate it now,” he said.
Robinson said the situation was part of a series of negligent acts by the legislature and that he hoped the Attorney General would apologise to the public.
He also called for an overhaul of the criminal justice system which he said was “just not functioning”.
“We have a Bail Act that was passed in Parliament in 2019 and, to date, it has not been given the force of law, so we are still dealing with bail in a piecemeal manner with piecemeal legislation at the Magistrate’s Court.
“We have a number of legislations that are archaic, and we should have a penal code just like St Lucia and other countries.
“We need to look at the prison system because, unnecessarily, magistrates are remanding persons to prison,” he said.
He called for a committee to be established to look at the issue, claiming that issues raised by lawyers, judges and those that work in the judicial system have “so far fallen on deaf ears”.
The 2017 Criminal Prosecution Services Act, which was enacted in 2021, states that “no public officer shall, after the commencement of this Act, institute any criminal proceedings or undertake the prosecution of any criminal case in any court, unless he is authorised to do so in writing by the DPP”.
The government is trying to amend that section of the Act, stating that “recent developments [have shown] that it is not practical for the police to always obtain the written authority of the DPP to charge an individual”.
The bill before Parliament now inserts “[w]ith the exception of the officers of the Royal Police Force of Antigua and Barbuda and officers of the ONDCP, no public officer, other than an officer of the Criminal Prosecutions Service, shall institute any criminal proceedings unless authorised so to do by the DPP”.