Editorial | Impeachment and recall now

Now that Prime Minister Andrew Holness has moved to establish terms of references for ministers and other members of parliament, he must also ensure the release of the impeachment bill from its long stay in legislative purgatory.

Beyond what is currently on the table, the bill should include a mechanism for the recall of MPs who constituents believe are not serving them well – as was proposed by the Stone committee on parliamentary reform more than three decades ago.

There has been a broad code of conduct for ministers since former prime minister P.J. Patterson framed one for his administration in 1992. But Prime Minister Holness promised more fundamental job descriptions and accountability matrices for his team when his party won elections in 2016 and when he returned to office in 2020.

Mr Holness is now acting on those pledges in the face of the public backlash against big salary increases recently given to ministers and MPs – the principle of which this newspaper supports, although we believe that the specific amounts should have been adjudicated upon by an independent tribunal.

Last week, the prime minister announced in Parliament that a joint select committee of both houses of the legislature would be established to “begin the full review of both the job descriptions and the code of conduct”.

Added the prime minister: “We hope that within short order we can establish a process where these job descriptions can be finalised and made public and become the template, the framework against which the execution of our duties can be judged by the public.”

EXPANSIVE VIEW

It is common knowledge that not only do Jamaicans not believe that their legislators do a good job, but that they are corrupt to boot. The poll findings published by this newspaper on Sunday, showing that politicians have surpassed the police in people’s perception for corruption, wouldn’t have escaped Mr Holness. In that regard, his call for Parliament to establish “its own integrity” is welcome.

However, that mustn’t mean establishing a system that, under the guise of self-regulated oversight, legislators limit the scope of their accountability and denude institutions like the Integrity Commission (IC). Which appears to be the agenda of even senior members of the Government.

So when the parliamentary committee begins its work, it must, even while moving quickly, entertain an expansive view of its mission. Yet, it need not seek to reinvent the wheel.

In one critical area at least, the committee can call on two significant bodies of work to give it a head start: the impeachment bill, which was first proposed by Bruce Golding’s administration in 2010 and revised and retabled by the current opposition leader, Mark Golding, two years ago; and the Stone report of 1992.

The earlier version of the impeachment bill would open the way for the impeachment of legislators and public officials who steal or misappropriate public resources, abuse their privileges or so neglect their duties as to render them unfit for office. The power to enforce those rules would be largely exercised within Parliament.

However, the original version of the bill died with the 2011 implosion of Bruce Golding’s administration over its handling of the Christopher Coke extradition affair. It was, however, reprised by Mark Golding in 2021, at the height of the controversy involving George Wright, the ostensibly ex-member of the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) who was claimed to be the man seen in a video beating a woman with a stool. Mr Wright has neither confirmed nor denied the claims.

Mark Golding’s version of the bill contains language that would capture domestic abuse among the “egregious conduct or other misbehaviour unbefitting of the holder of the office of senator or member of parliament”.

As is usually the case with private members’ motions, Mark Golding’s bill has languished in the House. The circumstance demands that it receives attention, but with the added element of the Stone committee’s proposal.

RECALL PETITIONS

In the 1992 report, which also arose out of a similar backlash to proposed salary hikes for MPs, Professor Carl Stone noted that 72 per cent of Jamaicans at the time supported the recall of parliamentarians “who in their (constituents’) judgement are not performing”. Support for the position is likely to be higher now.

The Stone committee suggested that recall petitions be signed by at least 51 per cent of a constituency’s registered voters “to avoid the … power being irresponsibly exercised”.

Recall is not an alien legislative concept to Jamaica. Indeed, 25 per cent of the registered voters in Portmore, Jamaica’s only city municipality, could trigger an investigation into the conduct of the municipality’s mayor by the local government minister, leading to his impeachment by Parliament. Alternatively, a vote by two-thirds of the members of the Portmore council could cause an impeachment investigation.

If that level of accountability is good for Portmore and its mayor, why not for constituency representatives in the national parliament?

In Britain, if an MP is suspended from the Commons for 10 sitting days, or for 14 unspecified days, or is convicted for certain offences, that member of parliament is automatically subject to a recall petition, which needs to be signed by only 10 per cent of the voters in a constituency to trigger a by-election.

Acting now on these ideas would help to shore up confidence in politicians and the legislature. It shouldn’t be put off by hiding behind the constitutional reform question. The amendments here would be to the Representation of the People Act.