Editorial | Tilting at constitutional windmills

In the English equivalent of Jamaican, Prime Minister Andrew Holness might be accused of ‘throwing words’. That is, making a criticism, or implying disapproval of someone without calling that person’s name, but being sufficiently clear that it is not too difficult to determine at whom the barb is aimed.

He was not about “empty symbolism,” Mr Holness said last week in relation to calls for removing England’s Queen Elizabeth II as Jamaica’s head of state and replacing her with a non-executive president. In the circumstances, the prime minister’s word-throwing, would not, as some might assume, be aimed only at P.J. Patterson, who recently wrote to him, and to the Opposition leader, Mark Golding, suggesting that they quickly meet and agree on the constitutional process for the transition. Rather, Mr Holness took aim at all of us – the large outpouring of people, representing the majority of Jamaicans, who want action, sooner rather than later, on reforming that aspect of Jamaica’s Constitution.

Unfortunately, in that speech at a hotel’s opening in the parish of Trelawny, Mr Holness neither clearly articulated nor advanced a policy agenda. Instead, he appeared to be engaged in seemingly peevish, empty-handed swings at windmills, without the benefit, even, of Don Quixote’s lance.

ENJOYED CONSENSUS

This matter of removing the Queen as the physical symbol of Jamaica’s sovereignty and replacing her with a president grounded in the island, has enjoyed consensus for decades, except for a relatively minor procedural point. What was not settled is how the person nominated for the post is to be formally elected: by a two-thirds majority of the House of Representatives and the Senate sitting jointly, or separately? It is also a fact that while Mr Holness’ government periodically talks about constitutional reform, it has mostly dithered on tactually getting things done in the nearly six years he has been in office.

Constitutional issues, and specifically the matter of who is the head of state, have been put forcibly back on Jamaica’s agenda by recent developments in Barbados where, at the start of this month, the island transitioned to a republic. The sitting governor general, Dame Sandra Mason, became the non-executive president. There is a push for the same to happen here, which, if the process starts now, could be accomplished before the end of 2022, during the year of Jamaica’s 60th anniversary of Independence. That is the context in which Mr Patterson, a former prime minister who attempted to deliver on Jamaica’s transition to republic, wrote to Mr Holness and Mr Golding, reminding them of their parties’ consensus on the matter. The only question to be settled is how the president would be chosen, which Mr Patterson felt could be resolved in a short meeting.

While in last week’s speech Mr Holness restated his support for the republican idea, he said: “There must not be empty symbolism. It must be genuine. It is what we are in our actions and in our achievements and what we have done. So, I am building towards the aspiration.”

Mr Holness conceded that he had spoken “in very vague terms,” but claimed that “those who have ears to hear those vague terms will understand, until it is time for us to have that . . . direct discourse which that process has started”. The prime minister, of course, is wrong about people understanding his intentions. He runs the risk of people imputing the wrong motives for what many assume, maybe wrongly, to be prime ministerial chagrin.

Added Mr Holness: “The nation is as the nation does, and there are some people who want to speak prosperity into being, speak sovereignty and independence into being. My philosophy is that we must do these things. We must make them happen.”

SUBSTANCE WAS LOST

If Mr Holness was intending to make a philosophical point about sovereignty, or offer some definition of independence, its substance was lost on his audience – and almost everyone else. Except, maybe, for his intimates who may be privy to his deeper thinking. His offering was, at best, intellectually woolly.

Given his past declared support for constitutional reform and the removal of the monarchy, Mr Holness would have served Jamaica better by being clear on which of two possible tracks he favours and on which his Government intends to travel. The Government, for instance, may feel that a fulsome review and overhaul of the Constitution is what is necessary, after which Jamaicans would vote on a new Constitution. This approach would likely take several years, if not decades.

Or, the country should proceed with the matters on which there is already broad agreement and which can be achieved without the political querulousness that would otherwise be attached to the necessary plebiscite to formalise such matters. This newspaper supports this approach. In that event, we should proceed with the matter of removing the monarchy and the repatriation of the Jamaican Constitution, making it an instrument approved by this country’s Parliament, rather than a document signed by a British civil servant as an Order in Council – a soft gift from the Queen. Even before that, Jamaica should end appeals to the Privy Council in London and make the Caribbean Court of Justice its final court, opening the judicial system wider to ordinary folk.

Mr Holness is wrong. Symbols are important to people’s psyche. Doing away with the monarchy now would not be an empty gesture.