NASSAU, Bahamas, CMC – The Bahamas authorities says it can “comprehensively” reply to a report by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) that referred to as on the authorities right here to do extra to make sure folks underneath arrest are given entry to authorized illustration.
“The Working Group interviewed quite a few detainees who had been disadvantaged of any authorized illustration on the preliminary phases of the proceedings as a result of they didn’t have the monetary means,” the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention mentioned in its preliminary report.
However Nationwide Safety Minister Wayne Munroe, in criticizing the WGAD report, mentioned the specialists didn’t present proof of lots of their accusations concerning the nation’s legal justice system.
Munroe mentioned he discovered the report alarming, including that it had inconsistencies.
“This report says that the evidential threshold to show {that a} confession resulted from ill-treatment is excessive. The group stories that an accused has to show that he was overwhelmed. That’s not the legislation on this nation, as you all know. The legislation on this nation is that we should show past cheap doubt that the confession was taken with out oppression,” Munroe mentioned, urging residents to belief legislation enforcement and never the “hostile” report findings.
“One factor I might advise the general public in opposition to, If it’s important to select who you imagine, you do your self a disservice for those who select to imagine an hostile report in opposition to the very individuals who you’ll name when any individual is at your door, who you’ll name while you hear gunshots within the evening, who you’ll name while you really feel threatened,” he mentioned.
“So, while you determine whose account to imagine, I simply need you to take note of that the prisoner, the legal, would all the time such as you to silence your watchdog.”
The WGAD visited the nation from November 27 to December 9, visited ten amenities, and interviewed over 130 detained folks.
In its report, the WGAD additionally mentioned that individuals are too usually arrested and not using a warrant, and arrests are typically primarily based on outdated or expired warrants. It additionally discovered that detainees are sometimes detained for longer than 48 hours with out court-granted extensions.
“The Working Group acquired data that some detainees suffered imaginative and prescient loss because of their detention in darkness,” the report mentioned, additionally noting recurrent complaints about detainees’ lack of ability to entry medical care and the absence of remedy for drug-dependent folks.
“The Working Group concludes that situations of detention don’t meet worldwide requirements,” the report mentioned, including that detainees don’t spend sufficient time outdoors in contemporary air.
Relating to jail situations, the Working Group highlighted acquainted issues about overcrowding on the jail, significantly within the maximum-security part, the place slop buckets are nonetheless used, and there’s a lack of operating water and satisfactory sanitation.
However Munroe mentioned the federal government would comprehensively reply to the report when the doc is launched.
The WGAD discovered that detainees are sometimes detained for 48 hours with out court-granted extensions. Nonetheless, Munroe responded, “They talk about individuals being detained for greater than 5 days.
“Properly, anyone who does the maths would know that in case you are charged on a Friday having been in custody for 5 days, there is no such thing as a court docket to carry you earlier than on a Saturday or a Sunday, so you’ll find yourself being in custody for seven days.”
He additionally took subject with different facets of the preliminary report, saying, “My query can be, who’s giving them this alert? If it’s the particular person arrested, that’s not a accountable solution to critique individuals.
“When you say that individuals have been arrested on outdated warrants, it behooves you to supply the proof of it. When you say I arrest somebody on an outdated warrant, that’s a bit of paper that exists as a reality. I’m not a betting man, however I’m nearly keen to wager that they didn’t take a look at one precise warrant,” Munroe informed reporters.
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