Drug workshop aims to redress prosecutor/defence imbalance By Courtney Joness Stabroek News July 17, 1998 Guyana and sister CARICOM state Belize, both hemispheric mainland countries, are considered to be front-line states in the battle within the region against illegal drug trafficking. Project Coordinator of the University of the West Indies/United Nations Drug Control Programme (UWI/UNDCP) Legal Training Project, Barbadian, Faith Marshall-Harris, made this point to reporters at the Le Meridien, Pegasus Hotel Thursday. Harris, an attorney-at-law, is currently in Guyana managing a UWI/UNDCP legal training project, involving an advanced four-day training workshop for Police Prosecutors from countries in the region, who have responsibility for the prosecution of drug offences. The workshop will be declared open today, by Chancellor of the Judiciary, Justice Cecil Kennard. Harris said the first workshop of this kind was done in Belize and that Guyana and Belize were selected as countries in which the workshop would be conducted for what she called "obvious reasons". "In both these countries, because of their geographical locations, and because borders are difficult to police, it means that there is additional pressure on Belize and Guyana in terms of controlling the activities of drug traffickers", Harris said. Participants in this workshop have been drawn from ten CARICOM countries with 40 coming from Guyana and 22 others coming from St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Lucia, Dominica, Anguilla, Montserrat, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago and the British Virgin Islands. The programme is being financed by the European Union, with special funding from the British government and the government of the United States of America and is a successor programme to one which was run three years ago by the UNDCP. "We also chose the training of police prosecutors as a priority, because in this region, the majority of the drug cases are heard in the magistrate's courts", Harris said, adding that in most Caribbean courts, prosecutors are police who are not legally trained. "They find themselves therefore up against defence counsel who are legally trained, usually quite experienced, since as drug traffickers become more sophisticated they can afford more expensive counsel", the UNDCP coordinator observed. She said that as a consequence, the police are at a serious disadvantage when trying drug cases. The official noted that another serious disadvantage to police prosecutors in the region, relates to the fact that in many cases they have other duties beside their court functions and do not have the time like defence counsel, to study the case and prepare briefs. "So very often cases are dismissed because the prosecutor is not necessarily a poor prosecutor, but because he has not been well equipped for the job", Harris said. Harris said the workshop, like many other similar activities planned by the UNDCP, is designed to redress the balance between the Police prosecutor and defence counsel "so we give them training on specific issues that give them the most trouble in an attempt to get them to speed up". She said the UNDCP will also be running workshops for investigators, crown counsel or state prosecutors and magistrates. She also disclosed that a symposium is being held in Barbados for judges next month. Noting that in nearly all Caribbean countries the magistrate's courts have been expanded to cover serious drug cases, Harris said this is putting an extra burden on police prosecutors. She said the four-day workshop is geared to deal with areas of procedure which police prosecutors find difficult to handle and is an advanced course. "This course is not intended for the prosecutor who knows nothing about trying a case. It is for those people who are already exposed to training to enhance courtroom skills ...and teaching trial tactics and techniques", Harris explained. She noted for example that the major weapon in the defence counsel armoury at drug cases, is the "no-case submission" and observed that they are usually quite successful with it. "No-case submissions are based on points of law and when you are dealing with the other side which is not legally trained, you can very easily bamboozle him with points of law", Harris said. As a result, the workshop will spend considerable time training police prosecutors to reply to no-case submissions. Harris said also, that in many cases the suspects get off scot-free because the defence counsel are able to bring up technicalities to get them off and that one error by the prosecutor leads to the case being thrown out. The workshop will include such topics as the Role of the Prosecutor in the Magistrate's Court and Prosecutorial Discretion, The Trial of Drug Offences, Trial Techniques, Principles of Evidence, Forensic Administration of Narcotic Evidence, Possession and Trafficking of Narcotics, and Asset Forfeiture Confiscation. It will also feature practical advocacy exercises such as the contesting of application for bail and replying to no-case submissions. One of the high points of the workshop will be a mock trial which will be presided over by Justice Lanais Parry, on Sunday. According to Harris, it will be a full scale mock up of a court with all the trappings. Resource persons for the workshop include former Attorney General, Bernard De Santos S.C, former Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Ian Chang, and current DPP Yonette Cummings, Justice Stanley Moore from the British Virgin Islands, Delroy Chuck and Dennis Morrison, Queens Counsel (Q.C) from Jamaica, Jeff Cumberbatch, Charles Leacock, and Latchman Kissoon from Barbados, and Murrio Ducille from the Bahamas. Commissioner of Police Laurie Lewis will deliver the closing address to workshop participants on Sunday.