Excerpts from the debate

On a motion to censure justice minister Dorothy Lightbourne in the Senate yesterday.

Sandrea Falconer

Most Jamaicans have concluded that the minister was defending one man, a single party supporter, while the national interest was being undermined.

The Westminster tradition has taught us that when you are found wanting in dispensing your obligation to the people, you must either be fired, resign, or be forced out in a vote of no confidence. Our former colleague, Senator Ronald Robinson, has set the proper example.

Norman Grant

Where there is a clear demonstration that a (leader) has been unable to deliver his/her responsibilities, questions must be asked and we must find a way for them to be duly removed from the position of service.

K.D. Knight

Madame Minister, what you have done was to have embarked upon an elaborate scheme to frustrate the request (for Coke's extradition). Your intent as well as others' was to protect Coke, not his constitutional rights ... . You sacrificed the interest of the Jamaican state for your partisan political consideration.

Noel Sloley

A nightmare of bad publicity over an extended period of time, in the interest, we are told, of the constitutional rights of one man. May I paraphrase: Never have so many suffered so much for the cause of one don.

Navel Clarke

Matters less serious than this have caused ministers to demit office.

If we are operating under this Westminster model, then I submit that the minister should do the right thing and demit office.

A.J. Nicholson

We know, as has been said, that the birds will flock together. In the vote, at least let us hear some word of apology, as the prime minister himself has done.

Dorothy Lightbourne

I do not question the motives of my critics; but I do question the naivety with which they accepted the skewed interpretations, pronouncements upon the laws and facts offered by self-proclaimed 'pundits', and the haste with which they adopted and repeated epithets, such as delay and dithering, in describing my dealing with the matter.

Arthur Williams

It became absolutely clear that the motion brought by the Oppo-sition was not born out of legitimate interest of governance, but was born out of malice, spite and ill-will.

Hyacinth Bennett

The Opposition in a most ungracious, viscerally driven scramble to recapture political ascendancy stated essentially that the minister of justice unjustifiably delayed the signing of the authority to proceed for nine months.

The unvarnished truth is that this clutching-at-straws ostrich-in- the-sand motion aimed at rehabilitating the image of the Oppo-sition is going to exit this House in a mere whimper in no time at all.

Marlene Malahoo Forte

No right-thinking Jamaican has been spared hurt, disappointment in any corner, but to say that the minister is to be condemned because the way she has used her power has caused unprecedented scorn and embarrassment to be heaped upon Jamaica within the community of nations, is not so.

Warren Newby

I find that they (Opposition) are interested in their own truth, they are interested in the vilification of the Government and of the wasting of the Parliament's time ... . This motion is about unadulterated partisanship.