JAMAICA-New firearms legislation to be amended to make guilty pleas more appealing to accused

KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC—According to Minister of Justice Delroy Chuck, the Government is moving to amend sections of the new firearms legislation to increase the rate of guilty pleas.

The disclosure came on Thursday as he responded to comments by attorney-at-law Peter Champagnie, KC, regarding the statutory mandatory minimum under the Firearms Act during a Caribbean Court of Justice Academy for Law regional town hall.

Champagne had suggested that the statutory mandatory minimum under the Firearms Act is not an incentive to plead guilty, noting that this aspect of the legislation needed to be revisited quickly.

“It is now creating a measure of backlog in the Gun Court because a typical accused person when you go to them, they’ll ask ‘what is going to be the penalty if I’m found guilty?’… and we say a minimum 15 years; ‘what is it if I plead guilty, what will it be,’ and you say 15 years, they’d say, ‘I’ll take my chances at trial,’ and so begins the backlog. So I think we need to revisit that aspect of the legislation in short order,” he said.

Minister Chuck indicated that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Judiciary have asked the Government to look at it.

“It is being revised. So that is being adjusted. I thought it would have been done long ago,” he said.

Meanwhile, Senior Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Jeremy Taylor, KC, informed that the Court of Appeal is convening a panel of nine judges to consider the mandatory minimum sentencing under the new Firearms Act.

The Act represents one of the advancements made by the Government to tackle the scourge of crime and gun-related violence in society. It creates a regime that prohibits weapons (certain firearms and ammunition) and activities relating to prohibited weapons. Additionally, it strengthens the penalties for offenses relating to prohibited weapons and activities.

Thursday’s hybrid regional town hall session focused on advancing justice in the Caribbean, following Needham’s Point Declaration, which was adopted on October 20, 2023, in Barbados as part of the 7th Biennial Conference of the CCJ Academy for Law.

The declaration follows six themes and contains 39 recommendations for reforming the criminal justice system in the Caribbean.