Scott-Mottley has no intention to resign from Senate
DONNA SCOTT-MOTTLEY has declared that she will not voluntarily quit as an Opposition senator after the People’s National Party (PNP) installs a new president next month.
“I will not be offering my resignation to whoever wins,” ScottMottley has declared.
But the long-time lawmaker signalled that there would be no resistance if she is asked by the new party leader to vacate her seat in the Upper House.
“Let me make my personal position clear. If a party leader calls me and said I would like you to resign from the Senate, I, Donna Marie Scott-Mottley, would offer my resignation,” she told The Sunday Gleaner during an interview on Friday.
Scott-Mottley is one of eight Opposition senators appointed by Dr Peter Phillips, the PNP leader set to demit office next month after leading the party to a crushing 49-14 defeat in the September 3 parliamentary election.
The Senate appointments have become a contentious issue in the PNP weeks before Phillips’ successor is identified through a presidential election set for November 7.
Those opposed to the appointments argue that the incoming PNP president will be bound by a slate of senators that include persons who are fiercely loyal to Phillips. Supporters say the business of the nation should not be placed on hold while the PNP sort out its affairs.
Dr Floyd Morris, who was also reappointed to the Senate by Phillips, said he was clear about what he intends to do when the dust is settled on the leadership contest, but is keeping that close to his chest.
INTERNAL ISSUE
“It is a matter that the PNP has to settle internally and I am prepared to make my decision at that point in time,” said Morris.
Mark Golding, one of the two declared aspirants for the PNP presidency, first took issue with the Senate appointments in a letter to party Chairman Fitz Jackson.
In the letter, which also raised concerns that Phillips was chosen as Opposition leader without a fulsome discussion among PNP members of
parliament (MPs), Golding noted that the tenure of the eight opposition senators was for the life of the Parliament.
“So the appointments will be binding on the next leader of the Opposition unless they choose to offer their resignations to him/her,” he said in the letter.
Golding explained in a Sunday Gleaner interview last week that his personal view on the issue is that where individuals are appointed to a public office by someone with the constitutional authority, they should at least offer their resignation when the person who selected them demits office.
“The right thing to do is to say to his or her successor, ‘I would like to offer you a free hand and I am prepared to resign’,” said the St Andrew Southern MP.
He, however, acknowledged that there are dissenting views on the issue, and that appointees are under no legal obligation to step aside.
“I think from the point of view of political governance, it’s the ethical thing to do,” he insisted.
Golding, a former senator, revealed that he took the same approach when Phillips was selected to succeed former PNP President Portia Simpson Miller.
HAPPY TO RESIGN
“When Mrs Simpson Miller demitted office, having made me leader of Opposition business in the Senate, I spoke with Dr Phillips and told him I would be happy to resign to give him the space to do what he wanted to do,” Golding recounted.
“And he thought about it and chose to keep the Senate intact.”
Morris, like Scott-Mottley, appeared annoyed at the controversy surrounding the opposition appointments to the Upper House of the Jamaican legislature and the sentiments expressed by Golding in his letter to Jackson.
“I never wanted to be drawn into this public spat over what individuals should do when the new leadership takes over,” said Morris, who is blind and the longest-serving senator on the PNP side.
Scott-Mottley admitted that she was “surprised” that the appointment of senators is being “made a public ethical question after the courts have determined that it is an appointment by the governor general that cannot be disturbed”.
“I’ve never before seen the whole question of the appointment of senators positioned in the way that it has been now,” she said.
Scott-Mottley has served as a senator through three PNP presidents, having been appointed by P.J. Patterson in 2005, and said never before has there been an issue about her tenure during the changing of the guard.
“When Portia Simpson Miller took over [from Patterson] there really was no conversation about resigning – not from her to say resign … no private conversation with me, who supported Dr Phillips over her,” Scott-Mottley recounted.
Golding, who is facing a challenge from St Ann South Eastern MP Lisa Hanna for the PNP presidency, noted that he served in the Senate with four of the current opposition senators.
“The others are all people who I have a high regard for. So, that issue I would address at that time and make decisions in consultation with them and others,” he said, should he become leader of the Opposition.