Parliamentary approval to sensitive posts still on the cards, says PM

Prime Minister Andrew Holness said the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) Manifesto proposal for a two-thirds majority of Parliament to approve the appointment of persons to sensitive posts in the public sector has not been shelved.

In its 2016 Manifesto, the JLP had pledged to make it mandatory that appointments to posts such as chief justice, president of the Court of Appeal, judicial services members, among others, receive a two-thirds majority in each House of Parliament.

Quizzed about plans to implement the proposal, Holness indicated that his administration would have to get buy-in from the parliamentary Opposition to pursue this policy. "You need to build political consensus before you make these kinds of significant changes to the structures and laws of our country. Many of those sensitive posts already have constitutional arrangements as to how they are appointed," the prime minister told The Gleaner in an interview last week at Jamaica House.

One of the sensitive posts to which mandatory two-thirds approval of Parliament was contemplated by the JLP administration is that of chief justice. Holness appointed Bryan Sykes as chief justice earlier this month, after first appointing him to act in the post which became vacant after Zaila McCalla retired in January. The prime minister's initial appointment of Sykes to act as chief justice in early February was met with howls of disapproval from 97 judges, who stayed off the job for a day to discuss the issue.