Skirting the rape definition
Dear Editor,
Now that the joint select committee appointed to complete the review of the Sexual Offences Act, along with the Offences Against the Person Act, the Domestic Violence Act, and the Child Care and Protection Act, has made its submissions, we get back to business as usual where the definition of rape is concerned.
While these are significant human rights matters, they will remain dormant until another age and time when another generation will discover that we refused to update the definition of rape under Jamaican law. Let us go into 2019 noting that this unfortunate position prevails.
The current dated and sadly limited definition of rape maintains only a reference to penetration of the vagina with a penis. Rape, in 2019 and beyond, will therefore remain gender-specific versus being gender-neutral. It will also remain object-specific versus being object-neutral. More generations of Jamaicans will be denied of more critical thinking around such matters of tremendous human rights import.
Can it be seen as anything else but laziness or a dereliction of duty, when the joint select committee reported to the Parliament in these words:
“Your committee considered all the implications of making any adjustment to the definition of rape and decided that wide public consultation and perhaps a referendum might be required before any amendment is made to this section of the Act. Your committee therefore decided that the definition of rape should remain unchanged.”
Are we sufficiently concerned to appreciate that matters of justice and human rights concerns are best addressed by those empowered with the duty of legislative review, recommendation, and change, versus referendum with its temptation to vote along the lines of partisan bias?
The committee did the decent thing of recommending that Section 5 of the Act regarding marital rape be deleted. And this was done without a referendum.
To be clear, some gains have been made by the work of this committee. It is just disappointing that there was a deficit in courageous decision-making for justice where the definition of rape is concerned.
Maybe the time has come for us to inquire into the capacity of the members of the Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament regarding their being equipped to do statutory review of the various Acts. Although parliamentarians are charged with the duty of doing recommendations for legislative amendment, how are they equipped to make decisions for the better administration of justice and the protection of human rights under the employ of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? When has both houses of Parliament ever engaged a study on the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedom? Will the Saving’s Law Clause become a crutch for escape from being agents of human rights?
May our lawmakers commit to a deeper understanding of their agency as primary human rights defenders of all our citizens in 2019 and beyond.
Fr Sean Major-Campbell
seanmajorcampbell@yahoo.com