Opposition celebrates another constitutional win
PRESIDENT Mark Golding and members of his People’s National Party (PNP) on Friday celebrated the latest in a series of victories against the Government, following a ruling by the Constitutional Court that an extension last year to the tenure of Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn was unconstitutional.
Golding, the leader of the Opposition, wasted little time on Friday following the ruling to call a press conference where he celebrated the victories by the PNP against the Government over the unconstitutional nature of specific legislation.
Golding used Friday’s press conference to highlight political points gained by the PNP in its challenging of legislation and actions of the Government on numerous occasions. He said the PNP was doing its duty as guardian of the constitution.
“This [latest] ruling is very, very important. It is ground breaking because it is a bill to amend the constitution that they passed and the basis on which it was challenged was because we felt the way it was seeking to do this had an improper motive, but also was in violation of the constitutional arrangements to do with how a DPP can have her tenure in office extended. The current DPP had received a three-year extension prior to her 60th birthday in accordance with the procedure that the constitution provides and the governor general approved that extension. Her tenure should have ended September last year, which was the end of that three-year period. The Government, for reasons one can only speculate about, sought in July last year to rush through this legislation not only to say that future DPPS and auditor generals would retire at 65 rather than 60, but to apply that to the existing incumbent is where they violated the constitution,” Golding said.
Golding pointed to a few other examples of victories achieved by the PNP following constitutional and other forms of challenges in court against government legislation, such as the National Identification System (NIDS).
“The NIDS legislation was rushed through Parliament with due haste and then when we warned the Government that it violated constitutional rights of citizens to privacy in the form it had been presented to Parliament, they chose to ignore our request to have that legislation properly reviewed by a joint select committee. We had to take it to court and an entire legislation had to be struck down by the Constitutional Court and the Government had to wheel and come again and bring new legislation to deal with the question of a national ID,” Golding said.
“There was, of course, the use of states of emergency by this government which we have said is not consistent with our constitution, and we have brought proceedings before the Constitutional Court to test their use of it. An earlier test of the constitutionality of states of public emergency brought by a young man called Roshane Clarke where the court ruled in his favour and awarded substantial compensation because he had been detained under circumstances where the court agreed was not in keeping with the constitution,” Golding said.
“There were other instances like the attempt to appoint a chief justice on a probationary basis. That was unheard of in the history of Jamaica and indeed other jurisdictions which civil society and I objected to as fundamentally violating the separation of powers principle where the prime minister took it on himself to think he had jurisdictional power and authority to review the performance of a chief justice and decide whether or not he should continue in office,” Golding said before touching other areas he has called out the Government on.
He pointed to undated letters of resignation by Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) appointed senators, which he said was an attempt to give Prime Minister Andrew Holness leverage in relation to Caribbean Court of Justice legislation brought by the PNP when they were in government.
“Those were tested by one or two senators on their side when the letters were used to remove them and that was held to be an improper device and a violation of the constitution. We have been vigilant on a variety of matters,” an upbeat Golding said.