NASSAU, BAHAMAS – The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has come under fire for his role in managing criminal prosecutions and the impact of severe case backlog on the crime fight.
National Security minister Wayne Munroe told reporters yesterday said he plans to meet with the DPP over his performance in the post alongside the state minister of legal affairs and the Commissioner of Police.
Munroe pointed to numerous complaints from police officials and local attorneys about several policies that are in place that impact the progress of criminal matters that have yet to be addressed by Williams.
“We are not satisfied with his management of the office, what we’re seeing, and we’re going to have a conversation with him over it,” Munroe said.
“We’re not pleased for instance that you can have a case for murder that is being defended by two (King’s Counsel) and a number of junior lawyers and he would not be doing it personally and people at a higher level would not be doing it, that’s regarded by the officers who work the cases as being disrespectful to their work.”
He continued: “We are encountering the issue as you would have seen and been documented of persons being admitted to bail for armed robbery, murder, being ordered to be electronically monitored, breaching the terms of their bail and so far as that is concerned going back to court, being fined in many cases and not remanded.
“He is independently in charge of the prosecutorial system, I have not been advised that there have been any appeals of those decisions onward to the Court of Appeal. That is troubling to me as a practitioner who has been in practice for three decades,” Munroe added.
