Daniel Thwaites | Emergency start to 2020

As 2020 begins, the mood of the country is generally buoyant and that’s not just because of the economy. In fact, regarding the economy, the actual figures don’t tell as glowing a story as the PR machinery would want us to believe.

The growth remains anaemic, but that’s partly beside the point. People feel hopeful because they see the tons of construction and big public works going on, and that hopefulness is a somewhat unquantifiable, but potent, factor.

There are some good things to mention. Foremost among them is the dogged determination of the Government to proceed with this next phase of the plastic ban. It is, in my view, admirable. I’m hoping they take it to the next level and devise a serious scheme, and law and punishments to back it up, to get rid of the plastic bottles polluting every small corner of the country. The place is filthy with these things which we all happily existed without up until a few years ago.

It’s the crime and the sense of general chaos that weighs on so many people I’ve spoken to, and remains the most glaring and stubborn counterpoint to the narrative the Government wants when it’s looking for an opening to call elections.

Mr Andrew Holness acknowledged as much in his New Year’s Message:

“It pains my heart that many of our brothers and sisters, and our children were deprived of seeing 2020 due to violence. This is a social epidemic and requires national consensus around the use of emergency powers to bring the disease under control.”

I was with him on the pains in the heart part, but the business about national consensus on the use of emergency powers? What could he possibly be talking about and why would he say that?

The problem isn’t a lack of consensus. The problem is that the use of the emergency powers hasn’t delivered. The Government has been operating with emergency powers for an extended period of time and it hasn’t been going well. It has, in fact, been a complete mess and disaster, and it’s getting worse.

For one thing, it’s stretching the language to call it an “emergency” in the sense of an “unexpected situation”, although everyone would agree it’s an “emergency” because the situation is so dire and requires immediate action.

The states of public emergency and the zones of special operations have become normalised, routinised, unremarkable, and most worryingly, ineffective. Look at the numbers!

Never mind the obvious and glaring constitutional dubiousness of these states of emergency and the long-term abrogation of citizens’ rights, it’s just bad policy. The deterrent effect has long ago fizzled, and that’s not only because the troops are exhausted and the videos of them sleeping have gone viral.

The newspaper story of Abigail Mullings, at church for New Year’s Eve, finding a bullet in her forehead, is sadly almost the perfect metaphor for the crime situation over this past year. This happened despite police warnings that “gun salutes” were illegal and wouldn’t be tolerated, and despite it being in a community declared a “zone of special operation”, and despite it being in St. James which is under a state of emergency.

If SOE and ZOSO couldn’t protect Abigail’s forehead, you better watch yuh own head back.

MAKES NO SENSE

I was driving through St Catherine just before Christmas when I was stopped by two very nice policemen obviously looking to earn some extra dollars for the holiday.

This is why I’m not bothered in the slightest that the top brass of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) is dropping the previous requirement that recruits to the Force know some math. If the new members aren’t so good at counting, maybe the motorists can get a little break.

Anyway, having determined pretty quickly that I wasn’t a suitable target for the “pay now and forget about the ticket” scheme, they reluctantly issued me a speeding ticket.

As an aside, the speed limits, and the signage, around the country are generally comically bad. I suppose it permits the police to spearfish almost anywhere for “pay now” customers, but it’s a huge inconvenience. Every now and again I will just drive the actual speed limit on the highways to frustrate everyone around me and annoy others. There must be some deep reasoning as to how 50 kmh on an open highway can possibly make sense.

I mean, given the utter madness on the roads, I’m not committed to any plan to make the highways less safe, but it only encourages people to ignore the law when the limits are so low everyone is disregarding them.

But more to the point, while the cops and I were enjoying our mutual engagement, it dawned on me that because of the emergency powers that the Government has generously given them in that part of Jamaica I was traversing, there was nothing but a social constraint against them locking me up if they felt so inclined.

Now maybe there are a lot of people quite comfortable with that situation, firm in the belief that the “scraping up” is for other people and not for them. However, I’m not of that mind, as I’ve been involved in what the police call “routine stops” that have gone south.

So I’m among those who will not and cannot get on board with the PM’s plea for consensus around his Government’s seemingly unquenchable appetite for emergency powers. What we want and need is better policy and the smarter application of powers the Government already has without this unending emergency during which things have only got worse.

- Daniel Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com