Letter of the Day | Disappointing recommendations from the CRC
Published:Monday | June 3, 2024 | 12:06 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam:
We at the Advocates Network (AN) stand with the National Integrity Action (NIA) in expressing our concerns about the current trajectory of the constitutional reform process and the recommendations that have come out of the deliberations.
The AN recalls co-chair of Constitutional Reform Committee (CRC), Minister Marlene Malahoo Forte’s, great promise on April 17, 2023, at the first press conference of the CRC, that foundational to the process was the Jamaicanisation/bringing home of the Constitution.
Given the disenfranchisement of the people in 1962, we welcomed this statement and viewed it as a recognition that every effort would be made to engage the Jamaican people, through available mechanisms, to be authors of this important road map and guiding principle towards governance and nation-building. We saw this as a bold and honourable step that would have been the manifestation of the well-established democratic principle that “a constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government.”
Yet, from the CRC’s inception, the conduct of the process has been nothing but contrary to this democratic ideal. Rather, it has degenerated into a repeat of the exercise of 1962, where decisions about the Jamaican people were made by politicians without meaningful engagement with the people. The AN continues to reiterate that the Jamaican people must be at the heart of the reform process. We continue to agitate that the move to the Republic must go beyond the removal of the British Crown as Head of State.
It should include the departure from the United Kingdom Privy Council and the establishment of the Caribbean Court of Justice as the final appellate jurisdiction, as well as other expressions of decolonisation.
Importantly, it must also include constitutional provisions for good governance to achieve social, economic, and environmental sustainability for Jamaicans. Anything short of this makes a mockery of the will of the Jamaican people and the real essence of becoming a Republic.
There is still time to correct these missteps, particularly through engaging in a sustained and meaningful process of public education.
ADVOCATES NETWORK