Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal re­porter

Ac­tion is be­ing tak­en on hir­ing staff for the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

In­ter­views for state coun­sel were con­duct­ed as re­cent­ly as ear­ly May, said At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour who par­tic­i­pat­ed in meet­ings with DPP Roger Gas­pard and oth­er se­nior of­fi­cials to ad­dress some of the chal­lenges at the DPP’s of­fice.

“And, of course, I give the as­sur­ance to the pub­lic—the cit­i­zen­ry—that the of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al con­tin­ues to place the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions–the in­de­pen­dent of­fice–at a most piv­otal stage in the im­prove­ment of our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem,” Ar­mour said in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day.

Ar­mour did so while pi­lot­ing leg­is­la­tion to abol­ish pre­lim­i­nary in­quiries (PIs). The 45-clause bill was passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Wednes­day.

Dur­ing the de­bate, UNC MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly not­ed Ar­mour’s crit­i­cism in March of the per­for­mance of the DPP’s of­fice. Ram­bal­ly cit­ed the sub­se­quent calls from at­tor­neys at­tached to the DPP’s of­fice for an apol­o­gy from Ar­mour. Ram­bal­ly, who had ex­pressed con­cern about struc­tures to op­er­ate the sys­tem af­ter PIs are abol­ished, had asked how the DPP’s of­fice would per­form in the new frame­work. Ram­bal­ly had called on Ar­mour to apol­o­gise to the DPP.

In March the of­fice of the DPP was spot­light­ed by Gas­pard’s con­cerns over chron­ic staff short­ages. Al­so, at that time the is­sue of ac­com­mo­da­tion for the DPP’s of­fice–at a Park Street build­ing which was nev­er oc­cu­pied–was raised by the Prime Min­is­ter and con­tro­ver­sial state­ments had al­so been made about the DPP’s of­fice by the Chief Jus­tice.

Gas­pard, in an April ap­pear­ance be­fore Par­lia­ment’s Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty had stood his ground on is­sues be­yond what his di­vi­sion could rec­ti­fy, not­ing the short­ages and oth­er is­sues, in­clud­ing cit­ing in­ter­fer­ence.

In May, Ar­mour said he had giv­en his com­mit­ment to work “shoul­der to shoul­der” with Gas­pard on ad­dress­ing the is­sues and both had been hav­ing “very mean­ing­ful ma­ture con­ver­sa­tions.”

Yes­ter­day, dur­ing the de­bate in the Sen­ate, Ar­mour cit­ed new sys­tems of­fered by the bill, not­ing this in­cludes the ful­some role of the DPP’s of­fice–the in­de­pen­dent of­fice charged with the con­duct of pros­e­cu­tion.

Ar­mour added, “In an­tic­i­pa­tion of com­ments I have no doubt will be made, may I say that in the process of com­ing to this House with this bill, among oth­er per­sons who I’ve con­sult­ed on this piece of leg­is­la­tion, I’ve list­ed them all, but I would em­pha­sise the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions has been con­sult­ed.

“Sev­er­al let­ters have been writ­ten to him invit­ing his in­put and he has made in­put and, may I say, with ref­er­ence to the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions that I con­tin­ue to en­gage with that of­fice, an im­por­tant part of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, in or­der to en­sure we make progress in im­prov­ing our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.”

Ar­mour added, “I’ve per­son­al­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in meet­ings with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and the chair­per­son of the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, as re­cent­ly as April 2023, to ad­dress some of the chal­lenges. I’m in­formed that in­ter­views for state coun­sel were con­duct­ed as re­cent­ly as ear­ly May.”

How­ev­er, UNC Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, in her con­tri­bu­tion, stat­ed that sim­ply in­ter­view­ing staff for the DPP’s of­fice and fill­ing low­er posts like state coun­sel will not solve the prob­lem.

She said a prop­er hu­man re­source plan­ning func­tion was need­ed with au­ton­o­my to hire and train per­son­nel so they can be re­tained.