JAMAICA | No Human Rights Problem? Opposition Tells Chuck: 153 Dead Jamaicans Disagree

Opposition Leader Mark Golding and Justice Spokesperson Zuleika Jess are demanding Justice Minister Delroy Chuck retract his Parliament declaration, after a week that saw 11 fatal police shootings in 24 hours and zero activated body cameras.

MONTEGO BAY,  Jamaica, June 16, 2026 - Opposition Leader Mark Golding has demanded that Justice Minister Delroy Chuck immediately retract a sweeping declaration to Parliament that Jamaica “does not, and I hope will never have, a human rights problem” — calling the remarks out of touch with a country reeling from a surge in fatal police shootings and a near-total absence of body-camera footage to verify official accounts of those killings.

“The right to life is not negotiable,” Golding said in a statement responding to Chuck’s Sectoral Debate contribution. While crediting the Jamaica Constabulary Force for real gains against serious crime, Golding insisted that progress “cannot come at the cost of our fundamental rights,” pointing to mounting public concern over accountability for police-involved deaths and renewed calls for mandatory body-worn cameras.

Golding grounded his rebuke in constitutional law. Jamaica’s Charter of Rights, enacted in 2011, establishes the right to life as a supreme constitutional norm, he noted — one that a fleeing suspect does not forfeit simply by running. “No outdated common law position can override that,” Golding said, adding that the justice minister “must stand as a guardian of human rights, not provide cover for their erosion.” He is calling on Chuck to withdraw the remarks outright or, at minimum, clarify them, so that “Jamaica knows the right to life remains sacred in this country.”

A Pattern the Numbers Can’t Hide

The Justice Minister’s declaration did not emerge in a vacuum. It came as a direct rebuttal to Opposition Spokesperson on Justice Zuleika Jess, who, a week earlier, used her own Sectoral Debate contribution to catalogue what she described as a range of injustices and human rights abuses confronting ordinary Jamaicans.

Jess was far blunter than Golding in responding to Chuck’s rebuttal, calling the no-human-rights-problem claim “delusional,” pointing to a brutal statistic that surfaced the same week: eleven Jamaicans fatally shot by police within a single 24-hour stretch, pushing the year-to-date toll of police-related fatalities to 153.

“To declare on the floor of Gordon House that Jamaica is free of human rights issues is not just a profound error; it is entirely delusional,” Jess said. “To look at a country where 11 lives are taken by state agents in a single day and say there is no human rights issue is the definition of gaslighting the Jamaican public.”

Compounding the concern, the Independent Commission of Investigations confirmed that not a single body-worn camera was activated by officers across any of those 11 fatal shootings — a gap Jess describes as a fundamental breach of accountability, leaving grieving families dependent on police accounts they have no way to independently verify.

“To look at a country where 11 lives are taken by state agents in a single day and say there is no human rights issue is the definition of gaslighting the Jamaican public.”— Zuleika Jess, MP, Opposition Spokesperson on Justice

Chuck’s Defence

Chuck has not backed down. He has directed Jamaicans with grievances to the Office of the Public Defender, which he says is empowered to prosecute human rights breaches, and has cited favourable assessments Jamaica received under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Universal Periodic Review as proof of the country’s international standing. “Human rights are a very important part of this government and of this minister,” Chuck told Parliament.

But citing commendations from Geneva does little to answer for the dead in Jamaica, the Opposition argues. Jess maintains that denying the existence of structural problems only delays the reforms needed to fix them, and insults the human rights organisations, watchdog groups, and grieving families “actively fighting for justice across the island.”

What Comes Next

Whether Chuck heeds the calls to retract or clarify his remarks remains to be seen. The Ministry of Justice has so far offered no indication that a walk-back is forthcoming, and Chuck has continued to point to international commendations rather than domestic casualty figures as his measuring stick.

But with the police-fatality count climbing and the very accountability tool meant to settle disputed shootings, body cameras, sitting unused in the moments that mattered most this week, the Opposition’s message lands with uncomfortable clarity: a minister’s confidence in Jamaica’s human rights record is no substitute for the lived reality of the families now counting their dead.

For Jess, Golding, and the advocates who have spent years pressing for reform, the stakes go beyond a single Parliamentary exchange. A government that will not name a problem, they argue, cannot be trusted to fix it.

— 30 —