The Queen and her ministers

Martin  Henry, Contributor

A recycled minister and a number of others were sworn in last Wednesday as the prime minister reshuffled his Cabinet.

The new ministers and ministers of state took the oath of office: "I … do swear that I will … freely give my counsel and advice to the governor general … for the good management of the public affairs of Jamaica ... ."

The governor general is the Queen's representative as head of the Jamaican State and he himself has taken the oath of allegiance to Her Majesty: "I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Her Heirs and Successors, according to law ... ." All parliamentarians must also take this oath of allegiance to Her Majesty. Michael Manley famously confessed that he could not mean it in his heart when he was obliged to so swear.

The governor general also takes the oath of office as the Queen's representative: "I will well and truly serve Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Her Heirs and Successors, in the office of governor general ... ."

Furthermore, the Constitution says the Parliament is headed by the Queen: "There shall be a Parliament of Jamaica which shall consist of Her Majesty, A Senate and a House of Representatives [Section 31]." To take matters even further, "The executive authority of Jamaica is vested in Her Majesty [Section 68]." That authority is exercised through the governor general "either directly or through officers subordinate to him", that is, through a Cabinet, which is what happens in practice.

An appointee to the judiciary is required to swear that: "I will well and truly serve Our Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth II, Her Heirs and Successors."

The Queen, then, and her heirs and successors are deeply entwined into the Jamaican Constitution. Indeed, the Constitution is built around the monarchy. And her current prime minister, like some others before him, wants her out, this time by the time of our 50th anniversary of Independence next August.

won't resolve issues

Removing the British-based monarchy from our constitutional arrangements may be good for our abstract 'sovereignty'. "I would not wish to see us celebrate 50 years of Independence without completing that part of our 'sovereignisation'," the prime minister said in his contribution to this year's Budget Debate. But it is extremely doubtful if removing the Queen and republicanising Jamaica will have the slightest effect on resolving the economic and social problems which have so blighted the Independence dream.

Her Majesty's Parliament is mandated by the Constitution to "make laws for the peace, order and good government of Jamaica" [Section 48] and the Cabinet is collectively responsible to the Parliament as "the principal instrument of policy" and for the "general direction and control of the Government of Jamaica" [Section 69]. The failure of good governance is a failure of Parliament and executive, dominated by two political parties which have acquired gang-like features, and has nothing to do with the monarchy which has never had any active engagement with governance in Jamaica.

While Prime Minister Golding and the Cabinet are further distracted from delivering good governance by the contrived urgency of removing a harmless monarch from the Constitution, The Gleaner is reporting Jamaicans as shouting, 'Give us the Queen!' This although no reported question in the commissioned Bill Johnson poll specifically asked about retaining or removing the Queen. What was, in fact, asked was if Jamaica would have been better off remaining a colony, and whether we should stay Westminster or go republic.

To the first question, a whopping 60 per cent, the vast majority born after Independence with no direct experience of colonial rule, felt Jamaicans would be better off remaining a colony. They can, however, other than simply listening to the repining of their 'ignorant' parents and grandparents look to Bermuda, and The Cayman Islands, and Turks & Caicos in the Caribbean neighbourhood to see how retained colonies have fared. The people in these colonies have repeatedly voted against independence. The question is, however, purely hypothetical. Jamaica, like other territories, would have been kicked out of the colonial nest as Britain went into imperial shedding mode after the Second World War.

westminster ahead

In response to the second question, staying Westminster (44 per cent) edged out going republic (35 per cent) by a clear 11 percentage points. (See graphic)

Meanwhile, the second-in-line as successor to Queen Elizabeth II, Prince William, and his wife Catherine, are on tour in Canada to overwhelming welcome and acclamation, as his grandmother, the Queen herself, has always received there - and here - to the great discomfort of anti-monarchists. William and Kate's recent wedding was an international celebrity event on the scale of the Olympics in a monarchy-hungry world. Even the very republican Americans have regalised several of their leaders.

Canada, one of the richest countries in the world and at the top of the UNDP Human Development Index in one of the harshest physical environments, has retained the Queen as head of state.

I like to run a simple little test with friends and colleagues who are fervently anti-queen and pro-republic: Line up all the republics of the world on one side, and there are many, since most countries are presidential republics, and line up all the monarchies on the other side. Plug in their vital statistics for development and human welfare and run the comparative analysis. It's even better to do the exercise with only the 54 member states of the Commonwealth. There is absolutely no correlation between republican status and being better off and monarchism and being worse off.

And glancing around the Caribbean, Guyana has an executive presidency, Trinidad & Tobago has a ceremonial one, Barbados and The Bahamas have retained the Queen, as has Jamaica, and Bermuda and The Cayman Islands remain colonies. The differential vital stats are well known.

I hold no brief for Missis Queen, her heirs and successors, but the monarchy embedded in our structure of governance is absolutely among the least of our governance problems. Cabinet ministers, old and new, will not be one bit less effective for having sworn allegiance to an absentee monarchical head of state, nor will members of Parliament. The prime minister's distraction with removing the Queen when he has so much more to worry about for improving governance in Jamaica is worrying.

tivoli death toll

We have just been dragged through the Coke extradition affair, one of the major political crises the country has faced since Independence. We are now learning via WikiLeaked cables from the US Embassy that members of the Government expressed fears that the extradition could destabilise the Government and the country. So great was the reach and influence of the subject. The extraction of Christopher Coke from a garrisoned Tivoli Gardens manned by paramilitary fighters took at least 74 lives, the largest death toll from any single security operation in Jamaica since the brutal suppression of the Morant Bay uprising in 1865.

Coke, his extradition, donmanship and the garrisons are creatures of our corrupt and tribalised political system in which violence, directly or indirectly, has claimed some 40,000 lives since the 1960s. This could hardly be blamed upon Missis Queen or Westminster. Or will be fixed by going to a monarchless republic.

Minister Andrew Holness, who has retained the education portfolio, has just announced - and has earned my ringing endorsement for it - a move to establish a national school-leaving certificate to set minimum graduation standards. Jamaica has one of the worst-educated populations in the English-speaking Caribbean, if CXC passes, especially in the benchmark subjects of English and mathematics, are the measure of the matter. And the Queen has nothing to do with this. She is also the Queen of Barbados.

high-school standards

The United States, whose much admired republic is celebrating its 235th anniversary tomorrow, has long established a high-school diploma as a measure of meeting minimum standards. I have long advocated a similar move for Jamaica, instead of relying only on a hodgepodge of CXC passes as a measure of achievement. I was excited by the introduction of the High School Equivalency Programme (HISEP), which was to allow adults to gain high-school equivalency without being locked into CXC subjects. And I poured some time and effort into assisting with preparing the first batch of HISEP candidates for doing the programme.

Where is HISEP now? The programme has just dropped out of public view.

But Minister Holness has a lot more work to do than just introducing a high-school diploma. More than 80 per cent of high-school students are now leaving without the minimum five CXC subjects, including English and mathematics, which qualify them for matriculation into tertiary education. This essentially means they are failing high school. Not much point in handing out achievement diplomas to a tiny fraction of the school-leaving cohort. Absolutely, performance levels must be raised to allow the large majority of high-school leavers to leave with diplomas.

I would like to urge the prime minister and his colleagues in Her Majesty's Cabinet to focus their attention and energy on tackling the big problems which have blighted our Independence and not be distracted by the constitutional fact of the 85-year-old grandmother in faraway Buckingham Palace being head of the Jamaican State.

Martin Henry is a communication specialist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and medhen@gmail.com.