PM, you were wrong
Dudus/Manatt Enquiry report says Golding/JLP should have stayed out of extradition matter
BY ALICIA DUNKLEY Observer Senior staff reporter dunkleya@jamaicaobserver.com
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
PRIME Minister Bruce Golding, Attorney General and Justice Minister Senator Dorothy Lightbourne and former Police Commissioner Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin have all come in for harsh criticism in the much-anticipated report of the $78 million Dudus/Manatt Commission of Enquiry tabled in Parliament yesterday.
The 58-page report submitted by commissioners Queen's Counsel Emil George, former permanent secretary in the Ministry of Labour, Anthony Irons, and Queen's Counsel Donald Scharschmidt, though couched in diplomatic language, left no doubt as to where they believed matters went wrong, starting with the Jamaica Labour Party contracting United States law firm Manatt, Phelps and Phillips to lobby the Obama administration over the extradition request for former Tivoli Gardens don Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.
They went further to suggest that the post now held by Lightbourne is due for review and that Rear Admiral Lewin jumped the gun in acting on information he received about the pending extradition request.
The commission, appointed by Governor General Sir Patrick Allen in October last year, began its hearings on January 17 this year to probe the Government's handling of the extradition request.
"On the evidence before us we conclude that the Jamaica Labour Party instructed Manatt, Phelps and Phillips," said the commissioners. "Diplomatic matters of this sort should be dealt with by our foreign service, accountable to Parliament through the minister of foreign affairs and not by a political party," the report read.
"It was imprudent for the prime minister to have instructed his party to deal with diplomatic matters involving US/Jamaica relations when the party is obviously not accountable to Parliament, unlike the minister of foreign affairs.
"It was also imprudent for any such initiative not have been led and managed by our ambassador in Washington. Surely, that would have been the appropriate diplomatic channel, accountable through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Parliament," the commissioners added.
According to the trio of commissioners, who had been accused of being less than authoritative over the course of the enquiry which ended on March 20, "the prime minister's involvement with Coke's extradition was inappropriate".
"He should have distanced himself completely from the matter. His failure to do this led to the unfortunate suspicion that he was protecting an alleged narcotics dealer and drug smuggler," they said.
"The Jamaica Labour Party should not have been involved to the extent it was. There may have been inappropriate comingling. We feel it was an unfortunate mistake because it fuelled suggestions that this move was made to protect Mr Coke because he was an important man to the JLP," the report continued.
In addressing the question of whether the justice minister should have promptly signed the documents giving authority to proceed with the extradition, the commissioners said this would "have prevented the criticism that the minister was deliberately delaying the extradition process for Coke for political reasons, and would have removed some of the causes of friction between Kingston and Washington.
"It seems to us that although late in signing the authority to proceed, the minister acted reasonably in signing it when she did," the commissioners said, noting that her "recollection of those events, however, was faulty".
The commissioners said while they "found no evidence of misconduct" on the part of the persons brought before it as it related to the handling of the request for Coke, "mistakes and errors of judgement were made", and suggested critical changes which could potentially marginalise Lightbourne, who was repeatedly labelled "incompetent" by the Opposition People's National Party during and enquiry.
"We suggest that the posts of minister of justice and attorney general should be split. The attorney general need not be a member of either House. We have considered the quality and amount of work done by the Attorney General's Department and the quality and volume of work done by the justice ministry and we recommend that these departments be headed by two different people," the report said.
In the meantime, it further proposed that Cabinet should be informed of any amendments or memoranda affecting constitutional rights.
In the case of Rear Admiral Lewin, the then police commissioner — who gave evidence that on August 4, 2009 he was told by someone in the US Embassy that on August 25, 2009 an extradition request would have been made for Coke — the commissioners said communication between the embassy and the rear admiral should have been made through the foreign affairs ministry.
"Notwithstanding, the rear admiral chose to act on the information without pointing out to the US Embassy that they were ignoring the proper procedure. The commission can understand the police commissioner's concern for security, but he may have gone too far," they concluded.
On the contentious issue of the Memoranda of Understanding (MOU), signed by former National Security Minister Dr Peter Phillips with the US Government and which figured prominently in the enquiry, the commissioners found that they were not in keeping with the Interception of Communications Act.
"Accordingly, nothing done persuant to, or in reliance on the MOUs can be said to have been under the authority of the Act," the said. "On this view, the supply of Coke's telephone records to the US Government agencies was, therefore, a breach of his constitutional rights."
The commissioners said they had to accept, however reluctantly, that this meant the MOUs were "in breach of the Constitution".
"We have come to this conclusion with much reluctance because Dr Phillips' obvious intention was to bring the narcotics dealers and gun runners to justice," the commissioners said.
