EDITORIAL - Name independents to the Senate, PM

We take Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller at her word that she will run a transparent, consultative and inclusive government in an effort to find the best policies to deal with Jamaica's difficult problems.

Implicit in Mrs Simpson Miller's promise is a recognition that all the talent required to do this difficult job does not necessarily reside in her People's National Party (PNP), or the bureaucracy. In any event, it makes sense that policy ideas and any legislation which may underpin them be subject to most robust analysis and debate, beyond partisan political considerations.

In that regard, we commend to Mrs Simpson Miller P.J. Patterson's successful experiment after the PNP's election victory in 1997 which, unfortunately, was discontinued.

Jamaica's Constitution allows the prime minister to name 13 of the 21 members of the Senate, the Upper House of Jamaica's legislature, which was conceived as a chamber of review. Mr Patterson named among his selectees two 'independents', businessman Douglas Orane and social activist and university professor Trevor Munroe.

Professor Munroe was subsequently appointed a PNP senator in the subsequent Parliament and made weighty, incisive and beneficial interventions. But we suspect that his time as an independent member when, like Mr Orane, he was unconstrained by party discipline, would have been a halcyon period. They influenced a broad rise in the quality of debate and review in the Senate.

Jamaica was better for the experiment, which was not forced on Mr Patterson, unlike in 1983 when the PNP boycotted the general election and the absence of an opposition leader forced Edward Seaga to appoint all the senators.

Indeed, we believe that the structure of the Senate, allowing for, among other things, the appointment of members other than those named by political leaders should be on the agenda for constitutional reform.

Reinstate patterson model

In the meantime, we see no compelling reason why a prime minister, who, like Mrs Simpson Miller, embraces the need for a halt of the winner-take-all notion of politics and for the widening of participation in policy debates, ought not to reinstitute the Patterson experiment. Other than, perhaps, a need for the slots to reward the party faithful.

Giving up two Senate seats does not impede the ability of the Government to pass legislation that does not require special majorities. The government side, in this case, is left with 11 members, against 10 between the Opposition and independents.

Even with a full slate of 13 members, the government side in the Senate would still be short of the two-thirds majority that is required to make changes to laws entrenched in the Constitution. They would still have to entice at least one member of the other side.

In any event, changes to the Constitution were not intended to be arbitrary or easy, but presume the logic of the argument to be so compelling as to be able to deliver a qualified majority. In this circumstance, it would seem more likely that a government would persuade independent senators to its reasonable cause than an intractable Opposition.

Mrs Simpson Miller, it seems to us, has little to lose by following Mr Patterson, her predecessor as leader of the PNP, whom she succeeded as prime minister during her 2006-2007 stint in office.