Dear Editor,

Some mightily strange things take place in this country of ours!

A citizen, a public servant, asks the Government, whose members are also public servants, to grant an extension of her tenure of service. The Government members gleefully give a positive answer to the request through the channel of an amendment of the constitution, by means of a parliamentary vote, to grant the extension.

But there has also been, for years, a sought-after required support of the same Government members for an amendment of the constitution, by means of a parliamentary vote, for all Jamaican citizens, the employers of the Government members, to have unimpeded access to justice in their court of last resort — a benefit that has been denied to generations of the vast majority of citizens — and the Government members have rejected the request out of hand.

So the Government, though most regrettably by an unorthodox, partisan method, sees wisdom in the pursuit of a hasty one-sided vote in the legislature to amend the primary legal document to grant the wish of one citizen, but recognises no wisdom in supporting an amendment to allow the entire citizenry, their employers who are responsible for their salaries, to reap a long-denied, tangible historic benefit?

How does all of this make sense in 61-year-old independent Jamaica, nearly 200 years since the abolition of slavery? What is it that accounts for this malady of injustice that afflicts Jamaica?

AJ Nicholson

nicholsonaj1@gmail.com