THERE IS good news and bad news coming out of the parliamentary session which debated whether Mr. John Junor, the Minister of Health, should take responsibility for the state of child care in Jamaica by resigning.
First the good news. Mr. Seaga, leader of the Opposition, knowing that the Government would use its majority to defeat the motion, suggested a compromise which, mirabile dictu, was accepted by the other side. Mr. Seaga said, in a pithily-worded summary of the situation, "Since it is not the intention of the Prime Minister to move the minister dealing with the child care, then we must move child care from the minister".
Mr. Seaga was settling for half-a-cake rather than none at all and the Government, by accepting the amended motion, was in effect admitting a degree of culpability, not high enough to remove Mr. Junor, but high enough to imply that he had failed in his oversight responsibility and that the child-care services should be put under another minister who, hopefully, would do a better job.
In Jamaica, we continue to set the bar of ministerial responsibility too low but the compromise in this instance was a step in the right direction. But it should not be seen as the end of the matter. Having accepted the compromise, the Government is under a moral obligation to make the portfolio change as quickly as possible and we wonder if Minister Portia Simpson Miller might not be a suitable replacement for Mr. Junor in reorganising children's services?
Now for the bad news! In the debate, two parliamentarians, Mrs. Sharon Hay-Webster on the Government side and Mr. Ernie Smith for the Opposition, got carried away in the hysteria of the moment and put forward suggestions that are totally unacceptable. Mrs. Hay-Webster wants young mothers to be sterilised by the state after having three or four children, and Mr. Smith wants all schoolgirls to be certified as virgins before being readmitted to their classes.
We are hard-pressed to decide which is the more outrageous. What is shocking in these suggestions is the state of mind of the public officials who put them forward, minds which seem capable only of focusing on effects rather than causes and are quick to recommend totalitarian solutions which dishonour lawmakers in a democratic society which claims to respect human rights.
The best that can be said for such outlandish proposals is that by their sheer artlessness they may have awakened public interest in the more fundamental issues involved.
