THIS DAY IN OUR PAST

The following events took place on June 6 in the years identified:

1980: Proposals for amendments to the Labour Relations and Industrial Disputes Act is sent to the Attorney General’s Department by the Ministry of Labour for legal advice. A committee comprising representatives of the Ministry of Labour, including special adviser to the minister, D.G Kirkcaldy, and industrial relations director, Anthony Irons, had been appointed in 1979 by the former minister, William Isaacs, to study the defects of the law and make recommendations. Isaacs’s decision was sparked by several controversial issues surrounding the law, including the question of representational rights in statutory bodies like the Jamaica Railway Corporation. The Gleaner understands that after the attorney general gives his advice, the proposals will be discussed with the unions and managements.

1994: Medical practitioners are stepping up a lobby to have the Medical Act reformed to legalise abortions in Jamaica. Margaret Green, president of the Medical Association of Jamaica, says doctors will support the introduction of an abortion law which is similar to the “the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act” in Barbados, the only abortion law in the English-speaking Caribbean. That Act permits a doctor on “his sole judgement” to carry out abortion procedures in pregnancies less than 12 weeks old. It allows the agreement of two doctors for pregnancies 12 to 20 weeks and the agreement of three doctors for a pregnancy more than 20 weeks old. It also legalises abortions carried out on the grounds that the pregnancies concerned result from rape or incest.