From left Buddan, Seaga and Johnson"The Jamaican political
system was built for
opposition, even spirited
and passionate
opposition, but it was not
built for unceasing
confrontation."
-Robert Buddan
"The command from the Constitution for the
Opposition would seem to be:
On the provision of peace
oppose.
On the issue of order oppose
On the issue of good
government oppose."
- Anthony Johnson
Anthony S. Johnson, Contributor
DEMOCRACY IS a great institution. Due process is also great. Were it not for these ideals, the Leader of the Opposition would have been quickly found guilty and condemned for what he has sworn under the Constitution to do. It is his duty to work toward making an alternative group of persons, the Government of Jamaica.
Why is there a problem with this? It is his duty and the Government's duty to protect the state and if, in his view, the Government is injuring the state, it his duty to criticise them, oppose them, and make plans to replace them. The means of bringing them down is set out in great detail in the Constitution. Even if his controversial speech was made at a political meeting it would have been proper, made from his seat in the House, it was as orthodox as a straight bat.
STATE VS GOVERNMENT
People do not understand the difference between THE STATE OF JAMAICA and the GOVERNMENT OF JAMAICA. Mr. Seaga never said he would work to bring down the STATE OF JAMAICA. It is the Government (Cabinet) which he is opposing. He is a part of the state, the institution established by the Constitution which came into force on August 6, 1962.
The Government was also established in the Constitution with its three branches the Executive, Legislative and Judicial. The Executive and Legislative branches are formed on the basis of elections, from which two sides are expected to emerge the Government and the Opposition. The word 'opposition' is expressly used to state exactly what it means opposition to the Government. The Judicial branch is established by a very tightly stated process to be a permanent, impartial, independent, entrenched body which interprets and administers the laws of the state.
The state includes all those elements which effectively manage and control the territory of Jamaica. It is a permanent body and is the ultimate authority of which we speak when we say Jamaica. It includes the Judiciary, laws, Offices (from the Monarch down), courts, educational institutions, the territory itself (airspace, marine resources, minerals, etc.) and is the owner of, and represented by, the National Symbols the Flag, National Anthem, Pledge, Coat of Arms.
All members of the Jamaican state (its citizens ) pledge their loyalty to the state, and owe the state a duty to protect it. They have a right to expect from it, protection from fear and harm, justice, equitable treatment, reasonable access to opportunities for the means of survival; and the enjoyment of life.
To summarise, the state is a permanent, almost mystic institution of which we are all members and to which unquestioned loyalty is required. (For this reason, some states such as the United States, refuse to allow their members (citizens) to be members of other states. Their view is based on the biblical 'no man can have two masters, for either he will love one or hate the other'. Other states, such as Britain permit citizens to be members of other states (and thus, have multiple passports for instance).
The Government is accepted as being the Cabinet. Chapter 69 of the Constitution states, "The Cabinet shall be the principal instrument of policy and shall be charged with the general direction and control of the Government of Jamaica and shall be responsible therefore to Parliament."
ROLE OF THE OPPOSITION
Who is the Leader of the Opposition? Chapter 80 states that he is: "The member of the House of Representatives who, in (the Governor-General's) judgement, is best able to command the support of a majority of those members who do not support the Government."
The Constitution makes it quite clear that it accepts as legitimate, members of the House of Representatives who do not support the Government. Further, it specially provides for an individual who is able to command them. In fact, the Constitution says nothing else about the Opposition except that it does not support the Government.
May's Parliamentary Practice (p.238) states that the Opposition "is the largest minority party which is prepared, in the event of the resignation of the Government, to assume office." It goes on by stating the duties of the members of the Shadow Cabinet, "it is (his) task to direct criticism of the government's policy and administration and to outline alternative policies from the point of view of a party which is bidding for the support of the nation."
To summarise, the Opposition members and its Leader, have a legitimate right to:
1. Not support the Government.
2. Prepare itself for the possible resignation of the Government.
3. Direct criticism of the Government's policy.
4. Direct criticism of the Government's administration.
Any person or persons engaged in the above would certainly be acting in a manner which could 'bring down' the Government. But any body of persons who act in concert on all four of the above would definitely be working toward 'bringing down the government'.
BRINGING DOWN A
GOVERNMENT
In public life, it may be dangerous to bring down a Government, or it may be still more dangerous to permit a Government to continue. We saw that Cabinet is answerable to the Parliament. Section 48 of the Constitution says that Parliament "may make laws for the peace, order and good government of Jamaica."
We are therefore speaking of the good of Jamaica, the state of Jamaica, our legal Mother, who must enjoy peace, order and good government. What if there is no peace, order or good government? That must be the duty of the Opposition to observe, bring to public attention and work toward putting itself in the seat of power.
Many Jamaicans believe that disagreement between Government and Opposition is at the root of the country's problems. They believe that both sides should sit together, plan together and work together for the common good. The nature of the world has decreed that this is not the best system. Whenever it has been tried, it has led to oligarchy and then dictatorship, and ultimately, the oppression of a large portion of the population.
OPPOSITION A NECESSITY
The fact is that however good a programme is, there will be persons who oppose it, and usually for good reason. Even if the Opposition is offering inferior solutions, the fact that there is an Opposition puts pressure to bear on the authorities to improve their performance.
If there is no opposition, there inevitably follows over-confidence and slackness which leads to low performance, sloppy administration and inevitably, corruption by those who are always seeking an opportunity for self-enrichment.
Even if this were not the theory, Jamaicans should ask themselves whether the Leader of the Opposition, Opposition members and the Shadow Cabinet have reason to believe there is no peace, order or good government in Jamaica. Every day, the members of the ruling party and the public decry the absence of peace and order.
As for good government, the state of the roads, the overcrowding and problems at public schools, anguish at public hospitals, confusion in the court houses and police stations, continuing degradation of the physical environment cannot in any way be the results of good government. The economists put all these things together in a single index called economic growth. Among the members of CARICOM, Jamaica has the lowest rate of growth and its per capita income has become the lowest except for Haiti and Guyana. Up to the end of the 1960s, only oil-rich Trinidad and Tobago had a higher per capita income than Jamaica.
It is worth remembering that Mr. Seaga is the only member of the committee which drafted the Constitution of Jamaica who is still sitting in the House.
The command from the Constitution for the Opposition would seem to be:
On the provision of peace oppose.
On the issue of order oppose
On the issue of good government oppose.
Senator Anthony Johnson, an economist, is Leader of Opposition Business in the Senate.
.
Robert Buddan, Contributor
THE TEXT of the Jamaican Constitution outlines a Westminster system of Government and Opposition that suggests an adversarial form of politics built on the same logic of the adversarial Anglo-Saxon legal tradition. In this tradition, advocates of the two sides oppose each other on the premise that this is the best way to reveal the truth. In politics this adversarialism has the danger of leading to a perennial clash of opposites without any final resolution of the truth. In fact, taken to its absurd extreme it can lead to a philosophy to oppose, oppose, oppose regardless of reason or justification.
The Jamaican constitutional founders, I believe, recognised this danger. In a small country vulnerable to ideological and social conflict with new and untried political institutions, it appears that the constitutional founders made two kinds of provisions for stability and order.
CONSENSUAL LEADERSHIP
One of these was to overlay the adversarial system of government and opposition with mechanisms that would encourage, if not require, consensual leadership. Unlike Britain, the Constitution recognised a Leader of Government and a Leader of the Opposition. In this way it recognised two parliamentary (not party) leaders. It further required that both had powers to appoint members of the Senate; consult and agree on who the Governor-General should be; and consult and agree on the compositions of the Public Services Commission, the Judicial Services Commission, the Police Services Commission, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Chief Justice, and the President of the Court of Appeal.
We have gone further than this. We have a bipartisan Electoral Advisory Committee, a Public Accounts Committee chaired by the Opposition and other conventions of the House that foster mutual responsibility for House business.
The intention of the Constitution was to give both leaders of Government and Opposition a stake in the system. They would agree on its administration in order to have an interest in maintaining it. The Constitution did not in fact really prescribe a winner-take-all formula. Regardless of how small a parliamentary Opposition there might be (even an opposition of one), that Opposition, or more precisely its leader, had powers to determine appointments to the legislature and appointments to high offices and commissions of the state. The Constitution did not lodge powers in the Government and Opposition as such, but more specifically, in their leaders. It did this, I suppose, in case parties collapsed or became threats to the system. The Constitution did show a curious lack of recognition of political parties.
The Constitution went on to make provisions for Government and Opposition (through their leaders) to negotiate legislation and make fundamental constitutional changes together.
LAW AND ORDER
The Constitution expected that together, these parliamentary leaders would act to maintain law and order so that a breakdown of the system would not occur. While it explicitly recognised a Leader of Government and a Leader of the Opposition, it did not explicitly recognise the system as a democracy. The Constitution preferred not to mention the word 'democracy'; nor did it mention 'political parties', or 'the right to vote'. Rather, it conditioned fundamental rights and freedoms on 'public order', 'public safety', 'public morality' and so on. The Constitution described the purpose of the system as one to provide peace, order and good government. Good government was a parliamentary government with checks and balances between Government and Opposition and provisions for periodic elections.
The Constitution vested rights in the people to elect govern-ments but vested powers in Government (and Opposition) to maintain the system. Rights of people as voters or rights of political parties do not explicitly exist. The Constitution explicitly recognises only the existence of parliament and the leaders of Government and Opposition in a system of checks and balances. This is the minimal constitutional guarantee.
RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP
Fortunately, Jamaica has been able to maintain a competitive party system, voting, and rights and freedoms. But the Constitution regarded the co-operation between parliamentary leaders to be the lynchpin of the Jamaican political system.
This system worked well between Norman Manley and Alexander Bustamante; and between Michael Manley and Hugh Shearer. It has not worked as well since Mr. Seaga assumed parliamentary leadership. The irony is that Mr. Seaga is the only surviving parliamentarian who was a member of Jamaica's constitutional committee the body that devised the Constitution. Edna Manley remarked (in her diaries) that Mr. Seaga fell outside the tradition of co-operation between party leaders established among the first two generations.
A telling story has it that once when Michael Manley and Hugh Shearer (who was no longer Leader of the Opposition) were having their weekly breakfast meeting at Jamaica House in the 1970s, they got news that Mr. Seaga and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) had organised one of those roadblock demonstrations against rising oil prices. Mr. Shearer was as shocked as Mr. Manley was.
No leader has led as many parliamentary walk-outs, boycotts, demonstrations and made threats and demands that Government do what he tells it than Mr. Seaga has. The latest threat to bring the Government down and to no longer co-operate with the Prime Minister is one in a habitual practice of non-co-operation.
The Jamaican political system was built for opposition, even spirited and passionate opposition, but it was not built for unceasing confrontation. Parliamentary leaders were expected to smooth over the deeper potential for class and racial conflicts in the society, not exacerbate them. Mr. Seaga lacks the constitutional temperament for consensual parliamentary leadership on which the Constitution is premised. He lacks the discipline for negotiation and compromise. He lacks tolerance for system failure and for human failure. He lacks appreciation of the broader need for stability to prevail over his personal fits of anger. Most importantly, Mr. Seaga fails to see that he, that is, his Office as Leader of the Opposition, is a fundamental part of the overall institutional make-up of the political system which must work in mutuality with the other parts. It is this that gives balance to the system. Without that, the balance fails and the system does not work well.
In a system of checks and balances, Mr. Seaga must be careful not to concentrate solely on checking every act of government at the cost of providing balance to the system. This leads to negative opposition ('oppose, oppose and oppose') without positive balance (bipartisanship).
BUILDING BIPARTISANSHIP
Mr. Seaga's erratic, unstable and unpredictable behaviour is uncertain ground for any lasting bipartisanship between the two sides of Parliament. Those who seek to broker a new bipartisanship must address this problem. The first thing to do is to institutionalise the process rather than leave it up to two individuals. The process must outlast individual leaders.
The mediators must get the political parties to agree to the principle and the rules for a lasting bipartisanship; for the respective secretariats of the parties to share information and resources towards this; and for an independent process of monitoring, investigating and consulting to service the bipartisanship. There must be means to resolve disputes and provide cooling off periods.
The Constitution can only guide us on the spirit of responsible leadership. It is up to society to make the institutional arrangements for this. If we believe that there is a failure of leadership or that there could be, then we must create the structures that establish boundaries to irresponsible leadership and which can, at the same time, nurture maturity, stability and compromise. We must do more than simply recognise political parties in our reformed Constitution. We must make legislation that provides rules for the parties to operate by.
Jamaica is not alone in trying to get a political system to operate along more consensual lines. In fact, it might be said that the first age of democracy that of adversarial democracy is passing. More countries are trying to find arrangements for the second age of democracy consensual democracy. There is sentiment in the JLP for this as well. This was the rallying cry of Bruce Golding and, in his own way, of Pearnel Charles. Mr. Seaga clearly belongs to the first age while Mr. Patterson and some in the JLP belong to the second. This is the problem that arises when parties like the JLP and their leadership fail to transform. Jamaica's bipartisan arrangements after the 2002 elections were a step in the direction of consensual democracy. One man's step back cannot be allowed to drag the two parties and the whole country again into the past.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. E-mail: rbuddan@uwimona.edu.jm
