Editorial | Is the impeachment bill dead?

A year ago, this newspaper felt compelled to remind readers of the definition of the phrase ‘in due course’, when it was used by Ed Bartlett to indicate when he would schedule a parliamentary debate on the Opposition bill to allow for the impeachment of errant members of the legislature.

The idiom is applied in situations when there is no specific timetable to act, usually leaving the decision to the discretion of the power over, or in control of, events.

The expression is particularly apt when the intention is for matters to fall through the cracks, or linger until they atrophy. Which is usually the fate of Opposition bills in Jamaica’s Parliament – and probably what was intended by Mr Bartlett for the Constitution Impeachment Amendment Act, 2021, which was laid by the Leader of the Opposition, Mark Golding.

As the leader of government business in the House, Mr Bartlett is the key regulator of Parliament’s timetable, on which he has to coordinate closely with the Speaker and the prime minister.

It is also notable, though, that Mr Golding and his party have been silent about the inactivity, as if they may have forgotten the bill. Indeed, they have not talked about it much publicly since the flurry of the George Wright affair.

MATTER OF IMPORTANCE

The Gleaner, however, believes that the bill is a matter of importance in the context of Jamaica’s ongoing debate over failures in governance, and the citizenry’s lack of trust in national institutions, including Parliament, most, or all, of whose members nearly half of adult Jamaicans believe to be corrupt.

The current administration’s apparent ambivalence to the impeachment bill is surprising, given its antecedents. Legislation close to the current one was tabled a dozen years ago during the administration of Bruce Golding, Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ predecessor as leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

Bruce Golding’s 2010 offering intended to make possible the impeachment of members of the House of Representatives and senators who misused public resources, neglected their duties, or abused their privileges to a point that brought the office they held into disrepute. However, the year before the bill’s tabling, and before its debate, Mr Golding’s administration imploded under the weight of the Christopher Coke scandal, in which the Government stonewalled America’s attempt to extradite Coke, a gangster who, in the complex world of Jamaica’s garrison politics, backed the JLP.

The JLP soon lost the government. The bill went into a long abeyance, although the JLP has been back in office for over six years. It was reprised last year in the face of the George Wright imbroglio. Mr Wright, a member of parliament (MP) elected on a JLP ticket, was accused of being the man seen in a viral video pummelling a woman, at one point with a stool. The woman was reported to be Mr Wright’s partner, Taneisha Singh.

Neither Mr Wright nor Ms Singh has confirmed or denied being the people in that video. However, there were calls for Mr Wright’s resignation from Parliament, and the Opposition tabled a still-to-be-debated censure motion against him.

Faced with the controversy, the JLP prevailed on the MP to take a leave of absence from Parliament to sort out his affairs. When he returned, Mr Wright ostensibly resigned from the JLP. He, however, declared continued fealty to the JLP and the Government. There have been recent signals, however, that the way is being prepared for Mr Wright’s return to the party.

DEMANDING ACCOUNTABILITY

While Mark Golding’s version of the impeachment bill largely mirrors that of his namesake, its broader language would bring into orbit behaviour of the kind of which Mr Wright was accused. For instance, legislators would face impeachment for “egregious conduct or other misbehaviour unbefitting of the holder of the office of senator or member of parliament, which is so serious in nature as to render the holder of the office unfit to hold that office; or bring the office held by the person into disrepute”.

The issue, however, is beyond George Wright, or the matter of intimate partner and gender-based violence, which became the primary focus at the height of the scandal. Rather, the bill’s primary anchor remains the reason why Bruce Golding proposed the legislation in the first place – as an avenue for demanding accountability by people who hold legislative office, have significant authority over people’s lives and the public’s resources, but in whom the citizenry has little trust.

Removing someone from Parliament by this process would require amendments to sections of the Constitution that cover the circumstances under which members can be ejected from the legislature, and broadly define what are impeachable offences and establish the framework of the tribunal that would hear cases against parliamentarians.

These changes can be done relatively easily, once two-thirds of the members support the bill in the House and the Senate. In the House, the Government’s majority far exceeds that threshold, and in the Senate, given the proposer of the bill, that ought not to be a problem.

It is possible that the impeachment bill is one of the matters that the legal and constitutional affairs minister, Marlene Malahoo Forte, is gathering up for review by her planned constitutional review committee. But Ms Malahoo Forte’s constitution reform agenda has lacked clarity and urgency. Perhaps, too, the impeachment bill is no longer a priority for the Opposition, or has lost its support all together.