JAMAICA. JLP SHADOW CABINET TO ISSUE FORMAL REPLY ON DEATH PENALTY DELAY

it was reported that the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) was to formally reply to what it described as "blatant misrepresentations" made recently by Attorney-General A J Nicholson regarding delays in the administering of the death penalty.
The decision was made during the first meeting of the new shadow cabinet at the party's Belmont Road offices in Kingston on June 7.
According to the JLP, a committee comprising Senator Dorothy Lightbourne, Delroy Chuck and Derrick Smith had been assigned to "carry out a detailed examination of the issues surrounding the bureaucratic and institutional delays in administering the death penalty".
The team, the JLP said, was to make a report of its findings to the shadow cabinet.
"The issue of the long delays in executing the death penalty was discussed and the Opposition spokesman on justice, Delroy Chuck, who had been off the island, was directed to respond to a number of blatant misrepresentations that have been published by the attorney-general," the party said in a release.
A month previously, Nicholson had blamed the delay in hanging convicted criminals on what he said was a failure by the Opposition to agree to proposed amendments to the constitution. But Opposition spokesman on national security Derrick Smith responded by saying that the delay was a result of the incompetence of the Government.