The release of 50 prisoners, via presidential pardons, promised three months ago has been further delayed. New Justice Minister Christlyn Moore says she is "making sure everything is in order" first. "It is being reviewed. We are not looking to stop it. I am making sure everything is in order. I am looking over the documents. I am not looking to change the policy or anything. In a few weeks you will hear something."
Former justice minister Herbert Volney had promised in August the prisoners would be released in time for last Independence Day, August 31. It did not happen. Volney, after Independence, said the process had been slowed by the Mercy Committee's rejection of over 20 of the recommended prisoners.
Volney chaired the committee. He said the committee felt because of the sensitivity of certain cases, it would not be proper to release certain prisoners. He said the list had to be re-opened to facilitate the 50-prisoner benchmark and said as far as he was aware no prisoners had been released.
Commissioner of Prisons Martin Martinez, in a newspaper report at the time, said no official word had come to him to release any prisoner whose name had been proposed for the Independence pardon scheme. In early September Volney said the release of the prisoners had hit a snag because the selection process had to be meticulous and well thought out and the Mercy Committee was still compiling the list of names to be submitted to President George Maxwell Richards, who had the executive discretion to accept or reject the recommendations of the Mercy Committee.
He said 30 names already had been submitted and a further eight had been signed off.