Editorial | Rescue the ombudsman

Delroy Chuck, the justice minister, ought by now to be conversant with the adage about bad policies. This newspaper repeats it often enough. What’s usually worse than their formulation is their actual implementation.

That is why this newspaper continues to be surprised that Mr Chuck, representing the Government, continues to double down on the bad policy of lumbering the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) with the job of political ombudsman.

“When we removed the independent political ombudsman and subsumed it under the Electoral Commission, it was well considered by the Government and, therefore, there won’t be any consideration of removing the political ombudsman or changing the laws,” Mr Chuck told the Observer newspaper.

Yet, the ECJ continues to be an apparently reluctant host of a function which, it was clear from the start, was a bad fit. And nor has the Government achieved any of the declared objectives when it set about on its ill-advised mission of dismantling the stand-alone ombudsman – saving money and giving the ombudsman teeth to make the office more effective.

With respect to the latter, nothing in the amended law gave the ECJ more power to enforce its rulings when acting as the ombudsman. Mr Chuck has said that the ECJ has been provided $60 million to conduct investigations as ombudsman. Donna Parchment, the last independent ombudsman until her tenure closed in November 2022, said she had $25 million, including to cover rent.

DIFFERENCES

More important, however, are the philosophical and functional differences that underpinned the ECJ and the Office of the Political Ombudsman.

The former, comprising independent and political party representatives, is primarily concerned with the nuts and bolts management of elections, and in helping Parliament with the formulation of laws to facilitate this. There is no question about its transformative impact, over four-and-half decades, in the conduct of elections in Jamaica.

The political ombudsman’s job was complementary, but different.

The ombudsman policed a code of conduct signed by political parties and their candidates to regulate their behaviour, especially during election campaigns. The ombudsman could initiate investigations on her own volition or upon complaints.

Essentially, the ombudsman role was as peace-keeper and arbitrator. While the office didn’t have the power of enforcement, its rulings had moral weight.

What the Government did, as the elections monitoring group, Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections warned when the law was being changed a year-and-half ago, was cause largely “ethical questions which are normally dealt with by the political ombudsman” to be fused to the technical matters handled by the ECJ.

CONUNDRUM

That produces an immediate conundrum.

The ECJ acts “indivisibly” as the ombudsman. While its decisions are by majority vote, it is reasonable to expect that the starting position of the members whose party has been complained against will be defensive.

Mr Chuck has recommended that the ECJ establish a director of political conduct who investigates complaints and then reports to the commissioners. That implies the commissioners will have to vote on his findings, which, on its face, seems reasonable. What is likely to happen in practice is the relitigation of the investigator’s reports, along partisan lines, by the parties’ representatives on the commission. This is a potentially slow and fraught process.

We, like Mr Chuck, are concerned that 18 months and one election after the law was amended – and with another poll in the offing – the ECJ hasn’t published the mechanism for the filing and handling of political ombudsman-related complaints.

Our disappointment, however, is tempered by an appreciation of the quandary imposed upon the ECJ to accommodate a bad fit. It is a matter for regret, though, that despite its obvious ambivalence and reluctance in taking on the ombudsman role, the commission, especially its chairman and independent members, haven’t spoken frankly and openly about it. They should do so now.

To Mr Chuck, a bit of advice: doubling down on a bad policy is worse than having formulated it.