The right to life is not absolute

I suspect that many people hope that Jamaica's new Charter of Rights, now awaiting the signature of Governor General Sir Patrick Allen, will begin a new era of 'smaddification' in Jamaica's history. Long have we had first-class and second-class citizens in this land, where some seem able to obtain privileges and better service from government officers than others; Section 13(3)(g) in the new bill guarantees "the right to equality before the law", which should put an end to class discrimination, but somehow I don't think so. The charter seems to give rights with one hand, and take them back with the other.

For example, Section 13(6) clearly states: "No person shall be subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading punishment or other treatment", and you would think that would be absolute; but the next section says that nothing "contained in" any law in force before now, nor "done under the authority of any law shall be held to be inconsistent with or in contravention of subsection (6)". In other words, nothing the Jamaican State now does under current law will be able to count as torture or inhuman or degrading punishment; and no one can bring action against any provision of any current law claiming it to be unconstitutional on the grounds that it supports torture or inhuman or degrading punishment. So nothing new there! No one can claim that conditions in our prisons are inhuman or degrading, or that the way our security forces conduct 'interrogations' amounts to torture. Michael Gayle and Agana Barrett must be turning in their graves!

dying in vain

I mention Gayle and Barrett for good reason. Gayle was a retarded young man who was taken off his bicycle and beaten by policemen on the street during a cordon-and-search operation; he vomited blood in the police station, and later died of the wounds he received from the police beating. Barrett and two others died of suffocation in the Constant Spring lock-up after having been scooped up in a police 'operation' and thrown with many others into an overcrowded cell. It would seem that both these Jamaicans died in vain, as the arrangements which gave rise to these two notorious incidents are excluded from the new Charter of Rights.

And just in case we missed it, the next section [13(8)] intended to sideline the Pratt & Morgan ruling of the UK Privy Council, underscores the point: (a) It doesn't matter how many years or decades a person remains on death row - that cannot be considered torture or inhuman or degrading punishment; and (b) no matter what "the physical conditions or arrangements under which such person is detained pending execution", that cannot be considered torture or inhuman or degrading punishment - no matter how much noise and how many sleepless nights are purposely contrived, or the abundance of cockroaches and rats. In my view, what our Parliament has done is to legalise torture and inhuman and degrading punishment.

right eroded

The first of our 'rights' mentioned under Section 13(3)(a) is the right to life. It is commendable that Section 13(12)(c) retains the right to life of the unborn child as a constitutional right in Jamaica. I await the enforcement of this law, especially in government hospitals. It is a shame that elsewhere in the Charter of Rights, the right to life is eroded by provisions which allow capital punishment.

Jamaica's new Charter of Rights, in Section 13(3)(k)(ii), guarantees all Jamaican citizens "publicly funded tuition in a public educational institution at the pre-primary and primary levels". Great! Our Constitution guarantees that no parents of Jamaican citizens will ever have to pay tuition fees in a government pre-primary and primary school (they will, of course, have to pay all the other fees). But the Constitution doesn't guarantee that when the child goes to the government pre-primary or primary school, they will get good-quality education - not even that they will ever learn to read and write! The better-off classes won't need this provision, for they have no intention of sending their children to a government pre-primary or primary school. And so our notorious and durable class divisions are quite safe, and will remain intact for many decades to come.

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and Roman Catholic deacon. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.