It's not really funny

BY Peter Espeut

Sometimes, in a flight of fancy, I feel I could write a screenplay for a comedy. Here's one idea for a scene: It is a Jamaican courtroom, and the defendant is on trial for concealing ganja underneath ships bound for the US of A. Druggy says to the judge in his defence: "I should not be on trial here. You should be thanking me! I am earning the country valuable and much-needed foreign exchange."

Funny, isn't it!

Isn't this the very same argument that former Commissioner of Customs Danville Walker has used to justify his actions on breaching the ban on the export of scrap metal without the proper export licence? Who says politicians are not funny people!

Danville Walker is particularly funny. Jamaica's Constitution bans persons who have sworn allegiance to a foreign power from Parliament; but it doesn't consider British Commonwealth countries to be 'foreign' since they all have the same head of state. So our comedian Danville says, "That's not fair! Foreigners (Americans like me) want to serve in Jamaica's Parliament too, without having to renounce. Let's change the Constitution to bring everyone under the Queen, so we can all share the common wealth of Jamaica, whether we are US citizens or Venezuelans or whatever." Funny, isn't it. Or maybe - all of a sudden - it is not so funny.

Do you really believe that Danville - the more than competent public servant with the enviable track record - served as director of elections for so many years without knowing that he was ineligible to hold the post by virtue of being a citizen of the US? Was the super-efficient Danville not that familiar with the law he had sworn to uphold? Maybe he isn't all that efficient and competent after all.

And did the PNP government of the day that hired him - that recruited him from overseas - not conduct proper due-diligence checks, and enquire into his citizenship, considering that he had been away for such a long time? They can't be all that efficient and competent, then.

I've been thinking: Any Jamaican who becomes a naturalised US citizen is required to renounce his or her Jamaican citizenship during the naturalisation ceremony. When they do that, do they mean it? Can you then welcome them into the Jamaican Parliament if they renounce their US citizenship?

Any person born in the US - even to Jamaican parents - automatically becomes a US citizen. If your parents bring you to live in Jamaica at an early age, and then 30 years later you renounce your US citizenship, of what country are you now a citizen? Are you eligible to contest a Jamaican election, and to sit in the House of Parliament?

The comedy is everywhere. Many years ago, the incumbent commissioner of lands (under the PNP) was found to have transferred government land to his wife, and she received a registered title; the transaction did not go through the proper procedure. The Opposition raised a ruckus, and the commissioner was forced out of his job.

But the wife was allowed to keep the land, even though it was corruptly obtained. The argument was that you can't reverse the issuing of a registered title, even if it is done corruptly. We must - at all costs - respect the sanctity of the registered title.

At the same time, of course, the same commissioner of lands was found to have transferred dozens of plots of land to politicians, and their wives and other family members. It was quite a scandal! If the commissioner's wife had lost her land, the implications would have been catastrophic! You would then have to consider taking back all the corruptly transferred land from the politicians and their friends! Not even the Opposition wanted that, for corruption in land deals goes back a long way, and 'the same knife that stick sheep, stick goat'. And so the principle is established: you don't reverse a corrupt transaction.

It is now accepted that the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) acted improperly in its sale of a property on West Parade - that the property was not advertised according to government guidelines. The occupants - who have long wanted to buy - have protested, and the contractor general is investigating, and the UDC had taken steps to review the matter, and put the sale on hold. But the purchaser of the property has demanded his rights: he has a signed agreement for sale, and he has paid his money! And so the UDC has handed him his title.

Can we, in these modern days, reverse an improper transaction?

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic deacon. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.