Gov­ern­ment's promise to re­lease 50 pris­on­ers as part of the com­mem­o­ra­tion of the coun­try's 50th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence has hit a snag. In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney, said the promise to par­don 50 pris­on­ers, an­nounced dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net brief­ing in June, is yet to be ful­filled. He ex­plained that be­cause the se­lec­tion process had to be metic­u­lous and well thought-out, the Mer­cy Com­mit­tee was still com­pil­ing the list of names to be sub­mit­ted to Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards. Vol­ney re­fused to re­veal the names of serv­ing in­mates who have been sub­mit­ted up to this time and would not say whether any­one had been re­leased. How­ev­er, he said while 30 names had al­ready been sub­mit­ted, "Last week, a fur­ther eight were signed off," he added. The Mer­cy Com­mit­tee, which he chairs, is ex­pect­ed to meet at the end of this month.

Asked if the rec­om­men­da­tions thus far had been ac­cept­ed by the Pres­i­dent, Vol­ney said, "The Pres­i­dent has the ex­ec­u­tive dis­cre­tion to ac­cept or re­ject the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Mer­cy Com­mit­tee. Once I have agreed to the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Mer­cy Com­mit­tee, it does not come back to me un­less the Pres­i­dent does not ac­cept the rec­om­men­da­tion. "If he does, that is some­thing that will come to me in time, as the Pres­i­dent re­turns the in­stru­ment and it is for­ward­ed to the Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er." Vol­ney said while it was the Gov­ern­ment's in­ten­tion to mark the In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary with the "par­don and ear­ly re­lease of serv­ing in­mates," it was equal­ly im­por­tant" to be care­ful, in try­ing to ac­com­plish the de­sire, that we do not of­fend peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly the sen­si­tiv­i­ties of the vic­tims, and that is why we are tak­ing our time in se­lect­ing per­sons." Pressed to say if there was a dead­line for the re­main­ing num­bers to be sub­mit­ted, Vol­ney said, "It is a Ju­bilee year and we are still cel­e­brat­ing and still work­ing on the 50 names. "In the nor­mal course, per­sons have to ap­ply to be par­doned, but in this case, we in­sti­tut­ed the process by hav­ing the Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er help by rec­om­mend­ing pris­on­ers, and this will con­tin­ue un­til 50 are par­doned. We will re­vert to the nor­mal process af­ter the 50 names are se­lect­ed."

Warn­ing that one could not ex­pect to see 50 pris­on­ers be­ing re­leased at once, Vol­ney said, "It is a work in progress, be­cause af­ter the Pres­i­dent signs off, there is an ad­min­is­tra­tive lull where the mat­ter is processed at the pris­ons with­in a short time and then the pris­on­er is re­leased." He said the con­tin­ued sub­mis­sion of names would not af­fect the re­lease of pris­on­ers whose names had been sub­mit­ted and ac­cept­ed ear­ly on. Asked if the Min­istry of Jus­tice or the prison au­thor­i­ties were ob­lig­at­ed to make pub­lic the names of pris­on­ers who had been par­doned, Vol­ney said, "We do not have to in­form any­one, be­cause these pris­on­ers have been care­ful­ly se­lect­ed and we do not think they pose a threat to so­ci­ety. We have been very care­ful and sen­si­tive to the feel­ings of vic­tims and pris­on­ers, who are al­so en­ti­tled to some lev­el of pri­va­cy, and in that re­gard, that is why we have not been able to achieve the num­ber as quick­ly as we hoped." In a re­lease af­ter the an­nounce­ment in June, the Jus­tice Min­istry said pris­on­ers se­lect­ed for par­don would be sub­ject­ed to strin­gent screen­ing by the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons, af­ter which their names would be pre­sent­ed to the Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on the Pow­er of Par­don (the Mer­cy Com­mit­tee) for rec­om­men­da­tion to Pres­i­dent Richards.

The state­ment al­so list­ed ten cat­e­gories of pris­on­ers who could qual­i­fy for par­don:

• first-time of­fend­ers with ex­em­plary con­duct

• non-vi­o­lent of­fend­ers

• pris­on­ers un­like­ly to re-of­fend

• peo­ple com­mit­ting mi­nor of­fences with sen­tences of less than four years

• pris­on­ers who are chron­i­cal­ly ill, old/in­firm, near their re­mis­sion date

• pris­on­ers who have un­der­gone re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion

• pris­on­ers with sup­port­ive fam­i­lies

• pris­on­ers whose re­lease would not cause a pub­lic out­cry.

Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Mar­tin Mar­tinez did not an­swer calls to his cell­phone yes­ter­day or re­ply to text mes­sages.