Justice Minister Delroy Chuck (Photo: Naphtali Junior)
February 26, 2025
In support of Mr Chuck’s appeal
The tragedy that unfolded in Manchester last Sunday morning should give Jamaicans cause to heed Justice Minister Delroy Chuck’s constant plea to make more use of his ministry’s mediation and restorative justice programmes.
There must have been a collective gasp of frustration among the populace when news emerged that two women were shot dead and three other people, including a child, were injured in an altercation involving a licensed firearm holder.
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The incident, we are told, stemmed from a dispute over what was said to be very minor damage to a motor vehicle. That the matter escalated to a firearm being used speaks to an inability among many humans to settle disputes through dialogue, rather than resorting to violence.
So now, the families of 35-year-old Ms Aldeen Dixon, and 42-year-old Ms Stacy Ann Mulgrave are left to mourn, while the other three individuals are nursing injuries that could affect them in the short or long term.
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No one can blame these families and the surviving victims of this shooting if they harbour feelings of vengeance. It is human nature.
But the capacity to forgive is also a feature of human nature and while, in many cases — especially when loved ones are brutally taken from us — it may be difficult, it is not impossible. In fact, it can prove therapeutic, helping to release anger and heal pain.
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So we support Minister Chuck’s appeal for citizens to take advantage of his ministry’s mediation and restorative justice programmes.
Mr Chuck’s latest appeal — made last Thursday at a conference staged by the justice ministry to mark United Nations World Day of Social Justice — offered some amount of hope that more people are acknowledging the value of this service.
According to Mr Chuck, the courts have started to see a reduction in backlog due to an increase in the number of people who buy into the idea of restorative justice and are solving their conflicts outside the courts.
However, he argued that if more people use mediation and restorative justice to address their conflicts, the number of cases that end up before a judge would be further reduced.
We couldn’t agree more.
This is one programme for which the Government should be commended, because a lot of effort has been put into making it a success. Just last March we reported that 90 citizens, who had been trained by the Dispute Resolution Foundation to resolve conflicts, were presented to their respective communities during peace walks in the Corporate Area.
The cohort comprised 26 males and 64 females, who were trained and certified as mediators and conflict interrupters or received certificates of participation for their efforts.
The 90 individuals, we were told, were from Denham Town, Olympic Gardens, Whitfield Town, and Mountain View. The training also included educators residing or employed to a school in one of the four communities.
Our hope is that this programme is expanded and that greater effort is made to educate the public. For while Mr Chuck told us that the programmes are successful, useful, and beneficial, there still exists people who don’t know about them and are not utilising them.
We share his desire to see Jamaicans get to the point at which we learn better ways to resolve disagreements, without having to burden the traditional avenues, including the much-overworked police force and the courts.
