With Jamaica’s restructured political ombudsman system under fire, civil society voices are urging stronger safeguards to uphold the political code of conduct during the election season. The shift from a stand-alone ombudsman to the nine-member Electoral Commission of Jamaica acting jointly has created confusion and weakened oversight. Amid allegations of code breaches and partisan tension, groups like CAFFE, local clergy, and chambers of commerce are being looked to as potential watchdogs. Many are calling for a return to an independent ombudsman, warning that the current setup risks failing the very standards it was meant to protect

Ombudsman needs help

Jamaica Gleaner/31 Jul 2025

AS A wave of allegations of breaches of Jamaica’s political code of conduct reignites concerns about the capacity of the reconfigured political ombudsman to properly do its job, questions are being asked of what can be done to prevent the new arrangement from going off the rails.

The bottom line is that perceptive Jamaicans continue to have little to no confidence in Parliament’s decision to dump the stand-alone political ombudsman, and put in its stead the unwieldy system of the nine members of the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) acting‘indivisibly as the ombudsman. So, with campaigning for the imminent general election heating up, and as the possibility for conflict rises, people are searching for answers to who, or what, might help.

In the absence of a clear or obvious fix to this conundrum, The Gleaner suggests three institutions/ organisations which either separately, or in tandem, might be called upon:

• The ministers fraternal in parishes and communities;

• The regional chambers of commerce; and

• The election monitoring group, Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections CAFFE).

The political code of conduct sets out a range of actions and behaviours, including speech, to be avoided by political parties, their candidates and supporters to prevent the tensions that can lead to violence, such as used to scar Jamaican elections.

The code was policed by a stand-alone ombudsman who had semi-judicial authority to, either on her own violation or the basis of complaints, investigate alleged breaches of the protocol and recommend redress. While the ombudsman didn’t have the power to enforce the office’s decisions, rulings against a party or candidate, the embarrassment it caused carried moral weight and helped to influence behaviour.

The ombudsman’s oversight of the ethical and moral sphere of domestic politics was significantly different from the nuts-and-bolts management of elections, which is primarily the purview of the ECJ.

But when the seven-year term of the last stand-alone political ombudsman, Donna Parchment-brown, expired in November, 2022, the position was left fallow for more than a year, until the law was amended just ahead of the February 2024 municipal elections to subsume the office into the ECJ.

IN-BUILT INVITATION TO FAILURE

To be clear, it is the entirety of the the ECJ’S membership that was given the job – the four independent members appointed by the governor general; the four members recommended, two each, by prime minister and leader of the Opposition (effectively by the Jamaica Labour Party and the People’s National Party); and the director of elections.

In effect, any complaint going before, and any investigation by the political ombudsman, will most likely not start with an open, fact-led discussion, but as a partisan quarrel between the representatives of the JLP and PNP. Which, apart from the philosophical considerations, was among the reasons why this newspaper, and others, objected to the political ombudsman being absorbed by the ECJ. It starts with an in-built invitation to failure.

After over a year of seeming inactivity, the ECJ recently named an official to whom complaints of breaches of code should be referred. The commission said, too, that it was in discussions with the general secretaries of the parties (one of whom is an ECJ commissioner, who will have a say in the commission’s deliberations as the ombudsman) about complaints against their members. The potential messiness of the process is even more obvious.

Disquiet over the ombudsman’s operation has been exacerbated by the slowness with which it appears to be coming fully operational. Hence the feeling that it needs help. The ECJ should not be afraid to ask for assistance, or be reluctant to accept if offered.

FRAME PARTNERSHIP

On its face, CAFFE, with its more than two decades of experience monitoring Jamaican elections, seems an obvious partner.

This, although its work, hitherto, has been a largely contextual oversight of the fairness of the balloting exercise, rather than the nitty-gritty elements of the campaign.

Further, under the sections of the election law that allow authorities to invite election observers into nomination and balloting premises, CAFFE, like similar organisations, has no special investigative privileges. Presumably, they, like anyone else, including private citizens, could file complaints with the Ecj/ombudsman about perceived or apparent breaches of the code of conduct.

Should it pursue this role as a deliberate strategy, CAFFE would perhaps need to significantly expand recruitment of its cadre of pre-election monitors (it is trying to recruit 1,000 for election day), as well as the budget to support the effort.

In that regard, CAFFE would be widening its mandate to include the basic elements of campaigns and adherence by political actors to the code of conduct.

Ministers’ fraternal, usually ecumenical groups of pastors in parishes and districts, as well as local chambers of commerce, tend to be already well grounded and have legitimacy in the communities where they operate. That would perhaps make them better trusted community overseers of the code. But they, too, would have no legal status as sub-ombudsmen, although they might add moral voices to the ECJ’S work. In that regard, the Ecj/political ombudsman should perhaps think about how it might frame partnership with these organisations.

What is required, however, is a return to the original idea of the independent, stand-alone ombudsman, although its operating structure might be upgraded and improved.

Enforcement powers should be among the upgrades.

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