“These
are issues which need to be addressed, and we should not pass this Bill without
implicit assurance that the constitutional rights of our citizens will be
protected at all levels”
Opposition spokesman on
National Security Derrick Smith commenting on the Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA)
Evidence Act 2015 which was passed by the House of Representatives on Tuesday
November 17th 2015
The
very controversial Bill in Jamaica has been quietly passed in the House of
Representatives.
I’m
of course referring to the Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) Evidence Act 2015 which
was passed on Tuesday November 17th 2015 as reported in the article
“House
finally passes DNA Bill”, published Wednesday, November 18, 2015 BY BALFORD HENRY Senior staff reporter,
The Jamaica Observer .
 |
The
Bill will now go to the Senate for approval after which time I’ll go into Law.
Attorney General Patrick Atkinson was upbeat on the prospects of the soon-to-be
enacted DNA bill, quote: “It takes away
from persons who have committed serious crimes the opportunity to hide from
justice”
But
we might have to wait awhile longer it seems.
A
delay of six months was the result of a request by Opposition spokesman on
National Security Derrick Smith to refer the Bill to a joint select committee
of Parliament for further review. This was to allow other individuals or
institutions, like the Bar Association, to submit concerns.
Apparently
they had a lot of concerns, many of which were voiced in my blog article
entitled “DNA
Evidence Act 2015 tabled in Lower House - Why National DNA Registry is Minority
Report for Anonymous Hacker”.
Many
of these concerns centered on the ease with which evidence could be planted and
how long the authorities could retain DNA evidence in the National DNA
Registry's Database, even if you were not convicted of a crime.
Now
it appears that another two (2) year will have to elapse before these issues
are resolved, as many do not like what appears to be the state's ability to
collect biometric data and store it indefinitely without your consent.
DNA Bill passed by
House of Representatives - Why DNA Bill may be unauthorized Biometric Data
collection on Jamaicans
According
to minister of National Security, Peter Bunting, the concerns raised by the Bar
Association were already addressed in the current draft of the DNA Bill.
However, many are not comfortable with the retention of DNA evidence even when
not convicted of a crime, as albeit like a fingerprint, it's a lot easier to
collect an easier to plant at a crime scene.
Opposition
spokesman on Justice Delroy Chuck was quick to point out that it could also
free the innocent. Many Jamaicans already distrust the Justice system and have
little faith that this positive benefit would equally work in their favour,
given the slow Justice system and corrupt Jamaican Police.
As
Opposition spokesman on National Security Derrick Smith rightly put it,
protecting ordinary Jamaicans from forceful mouth swabs to collect their DNA
will be hard to police, as this could technically be misinterpreted as
resisting arrest, despite the Section 3 of the constitution giving you the “right
to equitable and humane treatment by any public authority in the exercise of
any function”.
Still
it's potential to curtail crime would be further magnified if the Ministry of
Security were to have all Jamaicans registered their smartphones as well, as it
would make it easier to gain access to Call Data and GPS Location data as noted
in my blog
article entitled “@Digicel_Jamaica
vs @INDECOM_JAMAICA and Call Subscriber Records - How Jamaican Police use Phone
Records in Criminal Investigations and trample Right to Privacy”.
Will
be interesting to see what will become of the Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA)
Evidence Act 2015 after the two years of review by the joint select committee
of Parliament has passed!
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