EAC wants Electoral Commission bill passed this week
The Electoral Advisory Committee (EAC) wants the long awaited bill transforming the committee into a commission of Parliament passed by the Senate no later than this week.
An adamant EAC chairman, Professor Errol Miller, said yesterday that the Electoral Commission, which is slated to replace the EAC, has provisions for dealing with campaign financing, the issue which led to a delay in passing the bill in the Senate last week.
“We think it’s very important to have the commission in place, because we saw that campaign financing would be an issue and, therefore, we put the powers within the commission,” Miller told journalists at an emergency press briefing at the EAC office on Old Hope Road in Kingston yesterday.
“Let’s bring it to being,” he said. “Let’s get it established and then move with those matters.”
Miller insisted that any public debate on the issue should be under the aegis of the commission, which would then report to Parliament.
The Clerk’s Office at Gordon House confirmed yesterday that the Senate is to meet on Friday and it is expected that the bill, The Electoral Commission (Interim) Act, will be the main item on the agenda. The Act will remain in force until a second bill giving the commission constitutional authority is passed.
The interim bill was expected to be debated in the Senate last Friday, but the Senate spent hours debating a resolution from government member Senator Trevor Munroe, to have the EAC table its recommendations on political party funding.
In the meantime, the House of Representatives, which passed the bill from September 26, has started debate on a Private Member’s bill from independent MP, Abe Dabdoub, proposing legislation for campaign funding and registration of political parties.
The Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has already rejected participating in a joint select committee that the Government has proposed to study Dabdoub’s bill.
Opposition Leader Bruce Golding says that the JLP will not participate in any such deliberations outside of those instigated by the expected report from the EAC which followed recent bipartisan discussion on the issue hosted by the committee.
According to Professor Miller, the selected members of the EAC were “befuddled and perplexed about the necessity of the lengthy debate in the Senate last week on the matter of political party campaign financing”.
“We have done all the work for them, we have put it down there and all that’s needed for it to be done is to be passed by the Senate, and the Senate put off it’s passing last week for something that, in our view, was unnecessary and we are saying please don’t let it happen a second week in a row,” Miller stated.
The displeased EAC chairman also said he wished to dismiss any doubts that the debate might have cast on the work of the EAC.
“We wish to dispel any impression that may have been given that the EAC was not proceeding with deliberate speed on this matter and that the EAC needed any prompting,” he said.
“For the Senate to be saying you need to report to Parliament within such a period of time. could give the impression that the EAC is not acting with expedition on the matter, and I just want to say that is not the case. we have dealt with it with as much dispatch as we could.”
He said that the EAC proposed to table its report much earlier than the three months stated in Munroe’s resolution and, possibly, in another month.
Furthermore, he contended that the legislative body could not, in all fairness, mandate the EAC to submit its report within “so many weeks or months”, when it has neglected to deal with the amendments to the Representation of the People (Interim Electoral Reform) Act which was passed from as far back as 1979.
“How are you charging us to send reports to Parliament within so many weeks or months when you have had legislation sitting down there that we have dealt with, certainly for 27 years, and certainly for the last three years and you’re not dealing with it?” he asked. “We are saying, come on, deal with it. the selected members feel obliged to publicly state their plea to bring this 27-year period of the Interim Act to an end.”
– dunkleya@jamaicaobserver.com