Letter of the Day | Ombudsman out of order

THE EDITOR, Madam:

The ruling by the political ombudsman that Mark Golding, the leader of the opposition, breached the Joint Agreement and Declaration on Political Conduct by referring to Robert Montague, the minister of transport and mining, as ‘likkle bwoy’ and ‘Minister of Scandals’ and is to offer a public apology, a private written apology and to make a donation to a basic school in the minister’s constituency is outrageous on a number of fronts.

The relevant section of the Code says that party officials should not make statements that are inflammatory or likely to incite confrontation or violence, slanderous or libellous or malicious in reference to opposing politicians, their families and party officials.

The ombudsman ought to be quietly reminded that in the cut and thrust of political debate and verbal exchanges in a vibrant political system such as ours it is not and has never been for opposing politicians to utter nice things about their opponents, except at funerals. Indeed, it is the duty and has become the tradition of opposing politicians to ridicule, make a mockery, to embarrass and to belittle their opponents subject only to the laws of defamation and to avoid personal attacks going, for example, outside the realms of politics and common decency. Our politics is about points scoring and it is not akin to a church or an afternoon picnic attended by close friends.

The leader of the opposition would be well within his rights to ignore the ruling with the greatest of respect to the ombudsman, and any politician against whom such an outrageous decision is made would be equally so entitled. For one, compliance would be to require a Jamaican citizen to breach his constitutional right to freedom of expression, and second, the sanctions are clearly an overkill, tending to cause embarrassment.

The Office of the Political Ombudsman, a Commission of Parliament no less, is not allowed to make any ruling that would or is likely to offend freedom of speech guaranteed under our Constitution as there is nothing in the words uttered that cannot be justified under our freedom of speech provision. Referring to one’s political opponent as a little boy may well be offensive but that is the whole point, it is intended to be. That’s a part of our political discourse. If it is defamatory (which it is not) the minister has recourse to a legal remedy. In addition, the poignant reference to the ‘Minister of Scandals’ is fair comment and not without merit as the minister has presided over ministries of which very loud claims of corruption have been made under his watch. What next might the ombudsman find when another politician utter unkind words about an opponent? This is the problem, where will it end? Would she have, for example, asked Donald Trump to apologise to Joe Biden for constantly referring to him as ‘sleepy Joe’ during the last presidential election and justify the ruling on the basis that he was a man over 70 and is a grandfather and so on and so on? Ridiculous in the extreme.

Freedom of speech has its limits but it not limited by one politician saying unkind things about another provided that it is not defamatory even though offence may be taken. Mature readers of this piece can point to a myriad of offensive words uttered by politicians in Jamaica against their opponents and even to members within their own parties going back years, none of which I need to repeat here. Compliance with the ombudsman’s ruling would set a very dangerous precedent. Freedom of speech is a fundamental principle of a democratic society as ours. Jamaica shares warm diplomatic relations with many countries where freedom of speech the way we know and enjoy is unheard of. Compliance may even cause the minister to feel constrained to respond for fear that he himself may offend the Code. The minister is a seasoned and experienced politician and is quite able to offer his riposte to the leader of the opposition whenever next he finds himself on a public platform. Let us hear it. This is no business of the ombudsman.

The ombudsman is meddling in very murky waters and is acting outside of the proper remit of the office. The leader of the opposition is correct and any other politician would likewise be correct to say that the words uttered were“simple banter from a political platform”, and banter the like of which has been and will be uttered by politicians as long as we continue to enjoy our democratic system of government.

SEYMOUR STEWART

Attorney-at-Law