Editorial | Marella Discovery 2’s debacle a failure of obligation

PRIME MINISTER Andrew Holness belatedly changed the narrative, but the Government’s original explanation of how it failed to rescue 43 of its citizens from a cruise ship at the edge of its territorial waters highlighted flaccid thinking, bad policy and irresponsible behaviour that could be evidence against the administration for anyone claiming infringement of their constitutional right to return, should they wish to test the law to its limits. But worse, the competing statements on the issue: the PM’s declaration on Tuesday evening that he approved repatriating the 43 nationals from aboard the Marella Discovery 2 and the foreign ministry’s wriggling buck-passing suggest a failure to coordinate on the message, a kind of shortcoming that could be disastrous if it seeps further into policies aimed at fighting COVID-19.

Under the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, at Section 13(2) (f) of the Constitution, Jamaican citizens are afforded “the right to freedom of movement”, including the right, at Section 13 9(2) (f) (i), “of every citizen of Jamaica to enter Jamaica”. Constitutional rights and freedoms, of course, are not absolute. Indeed, Section 13 (2)(9) of the charter, among other reasons, specifically allows restrictions on freedom of movement when it is “reasonably justifiable for the purpose of dealing with the situation that exists during a period of public emergency or public disaster”. The COVID-19 pandemic and the fight to contain its spread in Jamaica fall within this category.

None of this, however, would have justified the approach of the matter of Jamaican crew members aboard the Marella Discovery 2. COVID-19, which has already caused nearly 130,000 deaths globally, has shut down the cruise industry. Its ships are in, or heading to, home ports to await recovery. Workers have been laid off or furloughed.

On April 2, the Marella Discovery 2 – the Marella Cruises is a subsidiary of the TUI leisure group – heading for home, stopped, according to Jamaica’s foreign ministry, for refuelling at a bunkering station 12 miles to the south of Port Royal, on Jamaica’s southeast coast. On the face of it, that bunkering facility was within, or, at best, marginally outside, Jamaica’s 12-mile territorial limit. The ship requested that its Jamaican crew members be landed. It was told that given that Jamaica had closed its ports, in response to COVID-19, that would require an exemption.

That, it seems to this newspaper, should have been an easy decision – a simple telephone call between Prime Minister Andrew Holness, Health Minister Christopher Tufton and National Security Minister Horace Chang, and an order to the Jamaica Defence Force Coast Guard to fetch the Jamaicans, assuming the vessel wasn’t allowed to come to port. After all, this was not a case of sending an aircraft overseas to bring home people: this lot, for all intents and purposes, were already here. All of this ought not to have taken more than half an hour.

Instead, over 24 hours, it seems, the Government dithered until the ship’s captain rescinded his request and sailed to the Dominican Republic, where that country’s citizens who were among the crew disembarked. It appeared that the matter did not come to the PM’s attention until April 3. But by the time he gave the green light to disembark the Jamaicans, the ship’s captain had decided to sail.

“It is surmised that the captain may have taken the decision not to wait for a process, for which neither a guarantee of success nor a timeline could be given, in light of the existing legal restrictions regarding our borders,” the foreign ministry said. Keeping a cruise ship idle at sea is expensive business.

CREATIVE THINKING

Prime Minister Holness may feel, as he suggests, that too much has been made of this issue and people are obligated to respect and follow the protocols that are in place. However, being slave to rigidities when practical action is required isn’t sensible. In times of crisis, there must be space for creative, solution-oriented thinking, including having a sense when issues need to be escalated quickly up the chain of command.

The Jamaicans still aboard the Marella Discovery 2 may have little interest in reconciling the PM’s and the foreign ministry’s narrative on their case. What they know is that having come within 12 miles of Jamaica’s shore, they are now on the other side of the Atlantic in Portugal, not knowing when they will return. Jamaica failed in its obligation to those citizens.