HERE WE GO AGAIN?

For in excess of forty years, Jamaica has been knocking around with the troubling issue of whether we should sever relations with the British Monarch as our head of state.

For years too, I have been a voice in the wilderness calling for us to do it before Queen Elizabeth died, for whereas I considered her quite harmless, the thought of having her son Charles as our head of state has always been for me, very repulsive. Not least because I consider that, the non-executive head of state should at the very least, be a good role model and neither Charles nor his “Queen Consort” can fill that bill.

Well, the inevitable is on us and instead of running full speed ahead to get rid of them and appoint a local person as our head, the political nonsense which has always stymied our progress, is evident again.

The more things change the more they remain the same.

In the initial stages, the sticking point between our alternating governments led by the Peoples National Party (PNP) and the Jamaican Labor Party (JLP), has always been the kind of republic we should replace our monarchial system with. For the PNP has always wanted an executive presidency and the JLP a ceremonial one.

I have no idea if that issue has been ironed out yet, but because little England (Barbados) took the step to get rid of the British monarchy in 2022, the ruling JLP, to tek shame outta dem eye, said they would follow suit and even appointed a minister of Constitution Affairs, to lead the process.

There is good reason why we should never cheer too early, for it appears now that those two idiotic institutions (JLP and PNP) are again going to stymie the country’s progress.

For the PNP has now refused to appoint members to the Constitutional Committee to discuss the extent of the constitutional reforms to take place, as getting rid of the monarchy requires serious reform and a referendum.

This time, the distraction is that the PNP wants the country to adopt the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to replace the British Privy Council as our final court of appeal, and will have no discussions unless this is agreed up front.

Omg. But shouldn’t the idea of a Constitutional Committee be that they negotiate these issues, not lay down hard lines?

I will be honest, when the CCJ was first established in 2005, I opposed it totally. For in my book, the interest of the Jamaican people was not properly represented by the Patterson regime (which led the PNP Government at the time) and it had all the appearances of being just another attempt to foist elements of a ‘federation’ though the back door.

For readers will recall that the PNP had supported the West Indies Federation but in 1961, when a referendum was called to sanction our membership, the Jamaican people said no way.

In the initial stages, the CCJ was a lopsided agreement between Jamaica and the other former British colonies. My main grouse was that although Jamaica contributed almost US$29 million of the $100 million fund established to fund the court, NOT ONE MEMBER OF THE JAMAICAN JUDICIARY WAS APOINTEFD TO SERVE ON THE COURT!

On the other hand, Guyana which contributed less than $9 million, had two judges, including the Chairman of that prestigious body.

That to me was a disgraceful insult to our judges, for by no measure could Guyanese judges be said to be twice as competent as Jamaicans.

That was my major turnoff, but over the years that situation has been rectified and the court has handed down some solid judgements and have proven themselves just as good or better than the UK privy council in terms of its competence.

So now I have no argument against us getting rid of the privy council as our final court of appeal.

But if the CCJ has to wait a while, so be it.

The refusal of the PNP to participate in the talks could mean we will be stuck in the monarchial rut again because our politicians seem incapable of sitting down together and ironing out simple issues.

In my book however, if it comes to that, the JLP needs to realize that it is the government and therefore has the responsibility to move full speed ahead with a referendum to get rid of the monarchy, with or without the PNP.

We really can’t allow political squabbles to cause this matter to drag on for another 40 or so years!

 

 

Leadership Crisis

Jamaica has a serious leadership crisis which does not bode well for the future of this beleaguered country at all.

Things  have been made worse by the recent election of Andrew Holness, a Seaga protegee and apparently a follower of Machiavelli, to the leadership of the alternative government, the JLP.  For many people had hoped he being a young man who claimed to be transnational, would have brought some semblance of decently and integrity to the political process as the present government has long proven to be not only incompetent and corrupt but lacking in leadership. For while our first female Prime Minister Portia Simpson is a novelty, that is mainly what she is and in fact is an embarrassment to female leaders throughout the world, who until now, have been far better at governing and leading than their male counterparts.

So that was why all eyes and hope were on the young man, the representative of the new generation. Holness has however has proven to be far too vindictive, petty and totally dishonest to allow us to hold out any hope for this country, for since he won the election, his only mission seems to have been to go after not only those who openly came out in support of his opponent Audley Shaw but also to even punish those who remained silent, leaning neither towards him or Shaw!

Where he struck the nail in his coffin however was by his outright act of dishonesty towards his own colleagues and  party supporters,  showing what he has in store for all  detractors, independent thinkers and persons aligned to the PNP. 

When Holness was first selected JLP leader by the disgraced Bruce Golding in 2011, as per normal, he selected a group of senators to sit in the Upper House. What Jamaica did not know however is that these appointees had been required to demean themselves in exchange for the vaunted job, by giving Holness undated and open letters of resignations.

While it has been revealed that  the unsigned  letters did not state how or when they could be used. Holness had apparently given the senators verbal assurances that they would only be used if any of them opposed the party's stance on having the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) replacing the British Privy Council as Jamaica's Finial Court of Appeal. 

However when two senators Auther Williams and Dr. Chris Tufton refused to obey his unreasonable request for all senators to resign after he was elected Leader, he simply ignored his promise to the two to only use the letters for a specific purpose, dated them and sent them to the governor general!

If that is not a total breach of trust, I certainty do not know what is, but if Jamaicans do not understand by that act, he is totally without scruples, then we are as blind as lambs to the slaughter.

Of course the crisis of leadership in this country has not passed unnoticed by all around us, for, within days, Barbadian Minister of Industry and International Business Domville Innis,  in castigating the Gleaner for an editorial criticising his government, told them to mind their own business and instead pay attention to the  "...rot going on in Jamaica."

Jamaica is indeed the sick man of the Caribbean. 

We Don't Need The Caribbean Court of Justice

As we  in Jamaica celebrate our fiftieth year as an independent nation, why can't we get it right?

Here we are rightly moving full speed to get rid of the monarchy and all other vestiges of that system including the privy council, then what do we do? Opt to make another external entity, the CCJ our final court!!

I make no bones about the fact that I am no regionalist and I totally respect for the decision that the people made in 1961 and therefore object strongly to all the moves being made to establish federation through the back door. The plain truth however is that all the attempts over the years have not worked for look at how Jamaicans are treated when they go to the other islands.

Just this week too I heard someone from the private sector on radio saying that their organisation has just set about doing been a cost benefit analysis of our relationship with Caricom. I suppose if we did not have a trade deficit of close to a billion dollars, they would  never have seen this as a basic necessity.

The fact is, Caricom only benefits the politicians and bureaucrats who gather to have a whale of a time at the various talk shops as they make decisions that affect our lives adversely and make no attempt to explain the implications of these decisions.

As far as I am concerned it was nothing but the anti-Jamaican bias that is prevalent in the region which led to not even one Jamaican judge being selected to sit on the CCJ when it was first established although we had to pay the largest fraction of the initial costs.

Anyway, the fact is we have extremely qualified and competent jurists right here and if we are really interested in true independence, as we talk about divorce from the Privy council, we would not be looking at half steps but would move full speed ahead to deal with the matter properly and in the interest of the Jamaican people, as part of our 50th anniversary celebrations.

  Let us have our own final court of appeal right here and what the heck, we can hire judges from other territories if the need arises, as it does in other professions from time to time.

-