Get on with it
PSOJ head urges parliamentarians to swiftly transition Jamaica into a republic
PRIVATE Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) President Metry Seaga is urging political leaders to get on with the business of transitioning Jamaica to a republic.
But Seaga has shied away from offering any comment on the divisive issues threatening to derail the process.
“I think we need to do it. I think it’s time. We gained Independence a long time ago and our next move should be to become a republic. So I am in favour of it personally,” Seaga told the Jamaica Observer late last week.
“We should be going in that direction and we need to do that sooner rather than later,” added Seaga.
While the two major political parties agree on the need to replace the British monarch as Jamaica’s head of State, they are at odds about several aspects on the way forward, with the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) boycotting meetings of the joint select committee (JSC) of Parliament now reviewing the Constitution (Amendment) (Republic) Act, 2024.
While not giving his position on the areas of disagreement Seaga said: “I do think we need to have discussions about it, we do need to hear all the points of view.”
Constitutional reform has been talked about for decades in Jamaica across different political administrations.
Different committees have been established by both parties, with the most recent being the Constitutional Reform Committee established by the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in 2023.
The committee submitted its report last year and a JSC was established to review the proposed legislation and has been doing so since January without participation by the Opposition.
Unless the parties can find common ground, the process would be stillborn as some of the provisions of the constitution require a two-thirds majority vote in both Houses of Parliament.
While the Government has a super-majority in the House of Representatives, where it holds 49 seats to the Opposition’s 14, it falls one short of the two-thirds majority needed in the Senate, where the governing party appoints 13 senators to the eight appointed by the parliamentary Opposition.
In this scenario, and where a referendum is also needed to remove the deeply entrenched provisions, replacing the UK-based Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has become the biggest sticking point in the process.
The PNP favours making the CCJ Jamaica’s final appellate court while the JLP is yet to make its position clear.
PNP President Mark Golding has led his party’s boycott of the JSC, having not attended since the second meeting on January 22, and has insisted that the Bill now being examined by the committee is “fatally flawed”.
Golding has argued that the Andrew Holness Administration should provide a clear position on the island’s final court, but the Government has countered with the claim that this is to be addressed in a second stage of the process.
The Opposition leader has also objected to the mechanism for appointing a president for the republic of Jamaica as he has charged that what is proposed effectively places that power in the hands of the prime minister, “a highly undesirable further concentration of power”.
But Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs Marlene Malahoo Forte has argued that Golding is being less than truthful and insincere as it relates to the constitutional reform process.
Malahoo Forte has appeared resigned to the fact that the reform process is doomed without the participation of the Opposition.
“I get the sense that no matter what answers are provided, the parliamentary Opposition would be separating from the process anyway,” said Malahoo Forte at a recent post-Cabinet media briefing.
She has further argued that a parliamentary Opposition should not be granted veto power to block the appointment of the president of the proposed republic under the constitutional reform process.
According to Malahoo Forte, any prime minister should have the final say on who should be the president after consulting with the leader of the Opposition.
With both parties now gearing up for the looming general election, it seems certain that the transition to a republic will drag on until after Jamaicans elect the next Government.
GOLDING… the Bill now being examined by the JSC is fatally flawed
MALAHOO FORTE… I get the sense that no matter what answers are provided, the parliamentary Opposition would be separating from the process anyway
