Kristen Gyles | Those three independent senators …

If the Constitution (Amendment) Bill is passed in its current form, we will finally have ‘independent’ senators in Parliament. Let’s talk about it.

The Senate consists currently of 13 individuals selected by the prime minister and eight individuals selected by the leader of the Opposition, for a total of 21. How has that been working out for us?

Between 2018 and 2023 when states of emergency (SOEs) became the most used and reused gadget in the government’s crime-fighting tool kit, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) encountered a challenge when the People’s National Party (PNP) decided to withdraw its support for the continued use of the SOEs. The government would announce an SOE and close to the time of the SOE’s expiration, would seek Parliament’s approval of an extension. On several occasions, they failed to garner the needed two-thirds majority vote, either in the lower house, as in the case of earlier SOEs, or in the Senate.

In order to achieve a two-thirds majority in the Senate specifically, the resolution to extend the SOE would need to receive 14 ‘yes’ votes while there are only 13 government senators. Of course, our senators decided to play ‘follow the leader’ and the 13 green senators voted to extend, while the eight orange senators voted not to extend.

The greens lost. They needed at least one orange vote and couldn’t get it. No extension. This was so upsetting and happened so many times, that after a while, the government started tinkering with a new idea. Since the opposition was playing games (not that the government wasn’t also), the government indicated that as part of efforts to reform the constitution, it was considering an adjustment to the two-thirds voting threshold which effectively requires the cooperation of the opposition for certain legislative processes like the extension of SOEs. Ladies and gentlemen, behold the adjustment:

SIZE INCREASE

The Constitution Amendment Bill now states that the size of the Senate should be increased from 21 to 27. Of the 27 senators, 15 should be selected by the Prime Minister and nine should be selected by the leader of the Opposition. The Senate should also include three independent senators selected by the ‘president’.

So, the government no longer needs the opposition to pass the two-thirds threshold. All it needs to do is to garner the votes of the three ‘independent’ senators who are hand-picked by the president. At face value this does not seem like an unreasonable move. After all, why should the country be held at ransom by a stubborn opposition that wants to play politics all the time? Well, that is one way to look at it.

The independent senators are so called because they are chosen by the president. But who is the president? In a world where Julie mangoes bear all year round and it never rains while our clothes are outside drying on the clothesline, the prime minister will collaborate seamlessly with the leader of the Opposition to select the president, and they will both come to an undisputed choice. However, what is proposed to be the new section 25 of the Constitution states that if, after some time going back and forth, there is no agreement between the prime minister and the leader of the Opposition, the prime minister will eventually just inform the Opposition leader as to who the president will be, subject to a confirmation vote in Parliament. This is just another way of saying that the prime minister will select the president, and as we said before, that president – chosen by the prime minister – will single-handedly choose three ‘independent’ senators.

BABY STEPS

That leaves us with a nice big Senate that, on paper, benefits from independent input but in reality, might very well not. This is not what we imagined when we called for the inclusion of independent senators. We also hoped that it would have been more than just three, but … I guess we are taking baby steps.

The last issue on this is that it seems apparent these president-selected senators are, in the minds of those who have crafted the amendment bill, second-class senators. The bill states that certain super-special provisions of the constitution can only be changed when there is a certain level of agreement across the aisle. It states that two-thirds of the lower house must vote in favour of any changes to these provisions, and so must two thirds of the… Senate? So we thought.

Once a bill for the amendment of any of these special provisions of the constitution reaches the Senate, the bill must be “…supported by the votes of not less than two-thirds of all the members constituting the members appointed on the advice of the prime minister and the members appointed on the advice of the leader of the Opposition.” In other words, independent senators have no involvement here. So, where it matters most, our precious independent senators have been excluded. Why?

We see the effort, I guess, but this is not it. Three (out of 27) senators, who are not elected or in anyway chosen by Jamaican voters, but cherry-picked by a political appointee, was just not what anyone had in mind when calls were being made for independent or unaffiliated senators.

The purpose of the Senate should be to provide a check and balance to ensure that the lower house (which is largely the winning party) doesn’t go rogue on us. The Senate cannot serve that purpose if it is majorly made up of members of said party and/or their affiliates.

Kristen Gyles is a free-thinking public affairs opinionator. Send feedback to kristengyles@gmail.com and columns@gleanerjm.com