Gordon Robinson | It’s time for our political leaders to bother

Jamaica’s governance structure is full of anti-democratic, impractical institutions, the most dysfunctional of which is the Senate.

To begin with, it’s so disconnected from we the people that despite its mandate to critically review legislation passed by the people’s representatives, it prefers descent into partisan, internecine insults and accusations. On the odd occasion that legislation is actually reviewed, the senators’ favoured method has been defence of one tribe or the other’s politics. For example, the clearly unconstitutional NIDS legislation passed “scrutiny” by an attorney general doubling as member of parliament (MP); a Lower House in which the Opposition tried manfully to induce caution; and “review” by an “upper-House” Senate.

The sun comes up an’ the sun goes down,

The hands on the clock keep goin’ around,

I just get up and it’s time to lay down,

Life gets teejus’, don’t it?

In 1983, political giant Edward Seaga, whose party won all parliamentary seats in an uncontested election, appointed eight “independent” senators [some suspected of People’s National Party (PNP) leanings]. Senate debates during that period were of the highest quality, proving only that one han’ cyan clap! “Government” senators had no PNP senators to insult, and “independent” senators took their jobs seriously.

Since then, the Senate’s descent into gutter politics has been swifter and deadlier to democracy than the Titanic’s trip to Davy Jones’ Locker. We the people are NOT on the agenda of a Senate whose deliberations are now indistinguishable from those of the “Lower” House.

Old brown mule, he must be sick,

I jabbed him in the rump with a pin on a stick.

He humped his back, but he wouldn’t kick,

There’s sump’n cock-eyed somewhere.

Yet again, the explanation for highly intelligent persons of integrity ignoring their national mandate is that the mandate doesn’t come from the people but from a party leader, selected by party delegates then by party-endorsed MPs (NOT by the electorate), allowed to appoint senators at his/her sole discretion.

We MUST learn the lessons of the 1980s, no matter how belatedly, and try to detribaliSe the Senate as best we can. Currently, it’s a low-quality comedy cabaret featuring characters sordidly scrambling for scarce political benefit despite the tactic proving counterproductive. The benefit they so crudely crave eludes their grasp as optics cause citizens to lose all vestige of esteem, shun electoral politics, and instead, pursue personal anarchy.

A mouse chawin’ on the pantry door,

He’s bin at it fer a month ‘er more.

When he gets through, he’ll sure be sore

’Cause there ain’t a durn thing in there!

So long as senators’ tenures depend on a political party’s fortunes and party leader’s favour, nothing can change. We must stop embracing Einstein-defined lunacy and try something new. Almost ANYTHING would be better than what exists.

OBSEQUIOUS TO ENGLISH CUSTOM

I find it incredulous how so many intelligent Jamaican political leaders seem not to see that English institutions like Westminster governance and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council are mere tools, cheaper than colonialism, used by England to keep us colonised. As long as we keep the Privy Council, England controls our laws, especially insofar as capital punishment is concerned. As long as we keep Westminster, we are enslaved by English political traditions that may suit (unlikely) a nation of 53 million but creates certain totalitarianism for three million people.

We remain obsequious to English custom and must, for example, beg England’s Queen for damages for slavery instead of demanding it if we believe our claim is justified. After all, she’s also Jamaica’s Queen. We keep going round and round in ever-decreasing circles, so could soon disappear up our still very English rear-ends.

I open the door and the flies swarm in.

I shut the door and I’m sweatin’ again.

And in the process I crack my shin.

Just one dern thing after another!

It remains one of my most frustrating lifetime experiences that we allowed the Privy Council, a foreign court not entrenched in our “Independence” Constitution, to subvert Jamaican Parliament’s termination notice by holding that any court replacing it must be entrenched in the same Constitution.

That rancid rubbish was swallowed whole by myopic Jamaican anti-Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) advocates. So they became easy prey to English brainwashing that indoctrinates that we can’t be trusted to manage our own legal affairs and Privy Council’s misdirection preventing us from using CCJ’s appellate jurisdiction unless we entrench another foreign court as our final appellate court.

Two impeccable, independent sources who were very much there confirmed to me Norman Manley’s rationalisation for agreeing, in independence negotiations, to retain the Privy Council was (paraphrasing): “On the first day of Independence Jamaica must have a third-tier court. There are problems to be sorted out with the Federal Supreme Court. We need time to decide what we want going forward. So I’ve no problem with temporary, unentrenched retention of the Privy Council. A simple parliamentary majority can remove and replace it whenever we want.”

Norman Manley never became prime minister. His son (perhaps consumed with Lomé Convention and Treaty of Chaguaramas) never got around to the issue in the 1970s. But in 1988, the first Caribbean prime minister to place the abolition and replacement of the Privy Council on CARICOM’s agenda was one Edward Philip George Seaga. The next year, he lost an election and changed his mind. It has since become an embarrassing political football.

Time’s up!

Time’s up for the Privy Council AND for a Westminster-style Senate. It’s past time to start a national conversation about crafting a new, Jamaican Senate.

MY SENATE MODEL

My contribution is as follows:

• Twenty senators should be elected every three years by proportional representation (voters asked to vote for political organisations) on a fixed election date separately from election of MPs although coincidental elections can be held on the same ballot.

• Five per cent of the vote equals one senator to an upper limit of 12 for any one group.

• A party not polling a round number (say, 52 per cent) gets an additional seat if the “surplus” vote exceeds 2.5 per cent. “Leftover” seats go to minority group(s).

• Senators cannot be appointed to Cabinet but have review/vetting powers over all legislation and vital government appointments (for example, chief justice, Appeal Court president, BOJ governor).

• Political organisations should publish pre-election lists of Senate candidates in order of preference. So, for example, a party gaining ten per cent of the vote gets to seat its top two candidates.

This is my best way to bring together persons still believing that an appointed Senate improves the debate with those believing all legislators should be directly answerable to the people. The model also creates opportunity for non-tribal groups to have a Senate voice.

Staggered, fixed election dates (MPs elected every four years?) will keep MPs/senators on their toes as political temperatures fluctuate. In this prototype, no party can secure a two-thirds Senate majority (another of N.W./Busta’s intentions).

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM

The Constitution should make it even more clear (in my opinion, it’s already pellucid) that whoever appoints can dismiss by including express power for group/party leaders to remove a sitting senator and substitute the next highest on pre-election lists for cause like corruption or other dishonesty.

Hound dog howlin’ so forlorn,

Laziest dog that ever was born.

He’s howlin’ ‘cause he’s sittin’ on a thorn,

An’ he just too tired to move over.

In the 1950s/’60s, Jamaicans were huge fans of American ‘Country-and-Western’ music. Those born after 1970 and obsessed with our mixed African/English heritage who don’t believe me, listen to Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire then to Don Drummond’s (Music is my) Occupation. There are many more examples of ‘Country-and-Western’s’ and cowboy movies’ influence on our culture.

One of my father’s favourites was Life Gets Tee-jus (tedious), a 1948 recording written and ‘sung’ by Carson Robison. It promotes a do-nothing attitude that says “Nothing changes so why bother?”.

It’s time for our political leaders to bother. This time next year Jamaica celebrates its 60th birthday. Its children and grandchildren are now in charge of its future. I strongly urge them to start thinking outside the English Box into which we’ve been stuffed for 500 years and stop fearing Pandora’s release.

To PNP, threatened with invalidation and struggling for relevance, I recommend that you start focusing on founding father’s 50-plus-years-old admonition to “restructure” (my emphasis) Jamaica’s economy and society. You won’t beat the JLP at its own game, so invent yours. A game called Constitutional Reform is available to you, but you’ll have to reframe the philosophy so that Jamaicans understand how important it is to their daily lives.

You have a year to devise the message. Get the show on the road!

Peace and love!

- Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.