Lawmakers cannot be lawbreakers

THE EDITOR, Madam:

The Advocates Network (AN) joins law-abiding citizens in expressing outrage and alarm at the recent public exhortation by Delroy Chuck, during Parliament’s Integrity Commission (IC) oversight committee meeting. We are befuddled that a minister of justice would advise fellow parliamentarians not to comply with the provision in the IC Act that requires them to provide information about their spouses’ and children’s earnings to the anti-corruption body. This amounts to an advice to break the law.

This is untenable! This not only weakens public trust of parliamentarians, but undermines the rule of law and core principles of democracy. This cannot be another ‘nine-day wonder’.

Members of parliament must take the Oath of Allegiance which requires them to “uphold and defend the Constitution and the laws of Jamaica.” Minister Chuck understands this responsibility very well and explicitly stated so in 2000 during deliberations on the bill entitled The Corruption Prevention Act. The Hansard reported that he said:

“It’s very important … that persons who would like to be public servants elected or bureaucrats, that they should be protected and protected in the sense, Madam Speaker, that their privacy in terms of their assets and information should be protected … I found that when I had to declare everything I own , everything my wife and my children own to be an invasion and indeed, I wondered if I had to. But eventually because I am a parliamentarian I said I will follow the law and I followed it”. (our emphasis)

This stands in stark contrast to his current position. What changed since 2000?

What objective does it serve and what does it communicate to the public to have our minister of justice recommend that the IC explain “Why is the IC asking members to indicate the salaries of their spouse or children?”

This requirement is not the IC’s idea, rather it is that of our own legislators. Chuck has been a member of the lower house for 27 years and would have been complying with the Parliament’s Integrity of Members Act, 1973 and the Integrity Commission Act, 2017.

Considering this huge discrepancy in his 2000 statement and that of January 14, his own understanding that the law requires it and not the IC, and his own compliance with this law for over two decades, the AN strongly urges Minister Chuck to provide a valid explanation for his anomalous advice to other MPs.

In the absence of a valid explanation, the AN joins the call for him to tender his resignation.

ADVOCATES NETWORK