Bruce Golding
The Portmore parish imbroglio
The establishment of Portmore as a parish is not a new idea. It was first advocated by the late Mayor of Portmore George Lee, almost 30 years ago. The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) adopted the idea and included it in its 2007 election manifesto.
The subdivision of Jamaica into different parishes is of ecclesiastical heritage. It grew out of the Vestry system that was established under Governor Thomas Modyford shortly after the British captured Jamaica in 1655. The Vestry system derived its basic structure, function and name from the system of local government in Britain at the time which was largely administered by the Church of England. Its meetings were held in the vestry of the Anglican Church in each parish. It served as an administrative unit whose functions were primarily to raise taxes, provide assistance to the poor, manage schools, maintain roads, prepare jury lists and meet the financial needs of the church, including paying the salary of its priest.
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The number of parishes grew from the initial seven to 22 before they were redistricted to 14 by Governor John Peter Grant in 1867, after the Morant Bay Rebellion. That delineation has been preserved since then. The original criteria for determining a parish, primarily that it should have a church at which its residents can worship (the Vestry system), is hardly of relevance anymore.
Why does Portmore deserve parish status? Its growing population is greater than eight other parishes. Geographically, it is larger than the parish of Kingston and is a well-developed urban area. Most importantly, however, is that it has a community identity that is far greater than that in any other parish.
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But there are other reasons. The existence of the Portmore Municipality within a parish that has a separate municipality is an anomaly with some elected representatives sitting on both. Would we entertain the idea of establishing Montego Bay as a separate municipality from the St James Municipal Corporation? Whatever criteria justify the Portmore Municipality could certainly be claimed by the citizens of Montego Bay.
Now to the legal conundrum. The fixing of parish boundaries is entirely within the power of Parliament by amending the Counties and Parishes Act as the Government, with its parliamentary majority, has done. But here comes the quirk. The Second Schedule to the Constitution, which is entrenched, states “The boundaries of a constituency shall not cross the boundary of a parish as delimited by the Counties and Parishes Act or by any law amending or replacing that law”. That law has been duly amended, but it has left constituencies straddling the proposed parish boundaries. What is now required is for the constituency boundaries to be appropriately adjusted where such infringement has arisen.
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The constitution provides that constituency boundaries shall be determined by Parliament after it has received a report of a standing committee of the House of Representatives. For more than 40 years, as part of the electoral reform process, the standing committee has accepted, without amendment, the recommendations of the Electoral Advisory Committee and its successor, the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ). But the quirk goes further. Under the constitution, the standing committee must submit a report regarding constituency boundaries not less than four nor more than six years since its last submitted report.
The Jamaica Parliament website has not been helpful in identifying when the last such report was submitted, but according to Professor Errol Miller, a former chairman of the ECJ, this was in February 2022. Assuming he is correct, the earliest time that the standing committee could submit another report would be February 2026, which would be well past the date when the next general elections must constitutionally be held.
Assuming that the elections will be held before then, the Electoral Office of Jamaica would be in the awkward position of administering elections in one or more constituencies that straddle parish boundaries — a breach of the constitution. The matter is before the courts and we await a ruling.
The Opposition has argued that the Government is seeking to gain a political advantage, both in terms of the control of the St Catherine Municipal Corporation where it holds a tenuous one-seat majority which could well disappear if Portmore councillors are no longer included and its chances in the St Catherine East Central constituency currently held by the JLP. The Government could well argue that the Opposition’s objections are driven more by their perceived political disadvantages rather than the substantive issues concerning the logic of Portmore becoming our 15th parish.
— Bruce Golding served as Jamaica’s eighth Prime Minister from September 11, 2007 to October 23, 2011
