A House of ill repute?

Bert Samuels, Contributor

The news that member of parliament for North East St Ann, Shahine Robinson, will be ousted from our Parliament for having sat there for three years as an unqualified member is, to say the least, most shameful. Among the several serious concerns touching and concerning our governance, here are a few of my concerns:

a) The member, more than any other person, well knew of her status, and wilfully sat in the House as an unqualified member.

b) That when her matter came before the courts shortly after the 2007 elections the matter was adjourned by our chief justice awaiting the landmark decision in the case involving Daryl Vaz. Thereafter, the Court of Appeal, the final court in electoral matters, upheld the chief justice's decision, making the issue of dual citizenship patently clear to all.

c) After the Vaz decision, it became the responsibility of all the members of the House to do the honourable and honest thing, and resign from the House if they were citizens of a non-Commonwealth country.

d) That the prime minister, having taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of Jamaica, should have taken it as his responsibility to ensure that all the members who sit and deliberate and pass laws for our good governance, would be doing so in accordance with the Constitution and in obedience with the decision of the highest court in the Vaz decision. The leader of the Opposition has no less a responsibility to the people of Jamaica.

e) Who will pay for the waste of judicial time where the correct judgment of His Lordship, Mr Justice Jones, having been arrived at, was reversed on the application of the said unqualified 'member', then started again, at her request, to give her her day in court, and then only after Mr Bowen's attorneys unearthed what was always within her knowledge, was she forced to throw in a soiled towel.

Based on the above, can we blame the cynicism which looms large among our people that the word politician is to be spelt "politrickian"? How can a person who offers him/herself as a leader in a constituency, elected to sit in the highest seat of representation in our country, paid by our taxes, voting on our laws, passing laws to govern our moral standards (including the whistle-blowing legislation), knowingly sit as an unqualified member?

Dark day in our history

Last Thursday was another dark day in our history as a people. The events have made a laughing stock of the whole idea of serving at the highest level and lowered the moral authority with which our representatives ought to be able to speak. It reminds me of the JPS advertisement where the little girl, after seeing her father making that illegal connection, said, "Daddy, you say stealing is not right so ... how come?"

I close with the words of Section 46 of our Constitution, which states unequivocally:

"(1) Any person who sits or votes in either House knowing or having reasonable ground for knowing that he (she) is not entitled to do so, shall be liable to penalty of ten pounds for each day upon which he (she) so sits or votes.

(2) Any such penalty shall be recoverable by civil action in the Supreme Court at the suit of the attorney-general."

Over to you, Madam Attorney General.

In addition to the fine imposed on this unqualified member, can we, the citizens, please have back all the pay she collected? I bet you my last two cents that she will be seeking re-election. My God, where will it end?

And what shall be left unanswered for the moment is the question posed by my little daughter, "What about the laws she voted on, Daddy?"

I am, etc.,

BERT SAMUELS

bert.samuels@gmail.com