ROLLING ON
Gov’t rejects eminent panel suggestion, passes ombudsman bill amid Opposition dissent
A SUGGESTION by the parliamentary Opposition that a panel of three eminent persons be established to adjudicate on matters that arise in the run-up to the local government elections on February 26 did not find favour with the Government.
The administration yesterday used its superior numbers in Parliament to pass the Political Ombudsman (Amendment) Act 2024.
The bill will next go to the Upper House on Friday for debate.
When Justice Minister Delroy Chuck moved a motion yesterday that the bill be read a second time, members of the Opposition called for a divide, which allowed lawmakers to register their vote on the proposed law.
There were 21 ayes from the Government side while seven lawmakers on the Opposition benches dissented. The bill was then examined at the committee stage and passed.
Before moving the motion for the bill to go to the committee stage, Chuck again made a case i n Parliament for the nine commissioners of the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ ) to perform the role of the political ombudsman.
There are four selected commissioners on the ECJ, two representatives each from the People’s National Party and the Jamaica Labour Party, and the director of elections.
“I think it is cheap and outrageous to say that this body could be partisan. I think it is unmeritorious to say that this body can’t continue to act independently,” Chuck declared.
However, St Andrew South Eastern Member of Parliament Julian Robinson rose on a point of order, saying that at no point did any member of the Opposition say that the ECJ was partisan.
URGED TO SUPPORT MOVE
Picking up from where he left off l ast week, Chuck urged the Opposition to support the Government’s move to have the ECJ commissioners conduct the role of the political ombudsman.
The role has been left unassigned since the Donna Parchment Brown’s tenure as political ombudsman ended in November 2022.
“Let us have a political ombudsman in place without any political considerations because this body can perform this role not only with independence, but with fairness and with the credibility and integrity that they have done in the past,” Chuck argued.
The justice minister told his parliamentary colleagues that the Political Ombudsman Interim Act establishes a commission of Parliament responsible for making recommendations to the governor general as it relates to the granting of emoluments to the political ombudsman.
Chuck said that members of the Opposition sit on the commission. He also noted that the commission had previously agreed for the Office of the Political Ombudsman to be subsumed under the ECJ.
However, Golding said that the commission spoken of by Chuck was of the view that the ECJ should be utilised to provide administrative support to an officer who could play the role of the political ombudsman.
Golding contended that prior to last week’s sitting of the House, there was no suggestion that the ECJ commissioners would take on the role of the political ombudsman.
“When this bill came to the House, which we never saw, there was no consultation,” he added.
He said the Opposition had anticipated that the Government would engage it in dialogue on the way forward.
There was no such discussion, said Golding, who accused the Government of “ramming the bill through despite the concerns from us and the wider society. It is disgraceful.
“It is going to bring the Electoral Commission into the fray of adjudicating on partisan and heated matters in the course of a political campaign. It is a mistake. It is bad policy to bring them into that role,” he added.