Editorial | A standalone ombudsman

Citizens usually have cause for worry when governments barrel ahead with obviously questionable policies against the advice of reasonable and thoughtful people. The outcomes tend to be good for a specific group of politicians, but bad for the wider society.

Which is why it is reasonable that Jamaicans are wary of the Holness administration’s push – despite the opposition of several organisations, including the private sector and the church – to subsume political ombudsman into the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ), the body in charge of the mechanics of the island’s election system.

“...It is a process that is presently being fast-tracked and therefore that office will be functioning as soon as we can get the legislation passed in Parliament,” Delroy Chuck, the justice minister, said last week.

The political ombudsman – when there was one – reported to Parliament and policed the code of conduct to which the island’s political parties pledge to abide.

The legislation gives the ombudsman powers to investigate breaches of the code and behaviour by politicians and activists that could inflame tensions, leading to violence between rival groups.

The law has its genesis in the fraught days of Jamaica’s politics when political campaigns were liable to turn violent, sometimes deadly.

The old politics have moderated significantly, in large part because the ideological stakes are not as high. The governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), historically the party of the right, has tacked towards the centre, while the People’s National Party (PNP), which remains democratic socialist, has lurched rightward.

But very importantly, too, over the past four decades the ECJ has led a reform of the electoral system, making it more difficult to rig elections and of less value to intimidate voters.

That, however, doesn’t mean that the rhetoric or actions of politicians doesn’t sometimes raise tensions, with the potential to ignite violence. In those circumstances, the ombudsman, acting on complaints or on her own accord, assumes a semi-judicial role, conducting an investigation and delivering a verdict, which might apportion blame.

CAN’T IMPOSE SANCTIONS

The great weakness of the law, as is widely recognised, is that the ombudsman can’t impose sanctions. She might call on misbehaving politicians to apologise or recommend that the party leaders impose penalties.

However, as this newspaper observed previously, the ombudsman is not entirely without power or influence. The office provides a bully pulpit, from which to amplify and call attention to her decisions. Indeed, a respected ombudsman carries moral weight and authority.

With the twice-postponed municipal elections expected to be called next month, the calls have increased for a standalone, independent ombudsman to be reinstated.

In rejecting the incorporation of the ombudsman’s office into the ECJ, The Jamaica Council of Churches, the umbrella group for the island’s non-evangelical denominations, insisted that there was “between the expectations and administrative functions of the ECJ and the Office of the Political Ombudsman’s (OPO’s) policing of the conduct of public officials in the pursuit of representational politics” and argued that the government’s plan ran “the risk of reintroducing concerns and confrontations of a partisan nature and detract from the distinctly apolitical and neutral work of the ECJ”.

“Instead, we call for the reinforcement of the Political Ombudsman (Interim) Act (2002) to give greater focus to the monitoring of political conduct by vesting greater power in the OPO and the subsequent appointment of a suitably qualified official to fill this post,” the JCC said.

Similarly, responding to a recent incident of children in Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ West Central St Andrew constituency filmed painting curb walls in his party’s green, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) demanded the reinstatement of an ombudsman “equipped with the authority to implement disciplinary measures against actions that contradict the political code of conduct. The role of such an office is critical in maintaining the integrity of our political processes and ensuring that all actions by political entities align with the ethical standards expected by the Jamaican people”.

POLITICAL CONFLICT

Like the JCC, the election monitoring group, Citizens’ Action for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE), warned of a potential for conflict between the job of the ECJ and the role of the political ombudsman’s.

“CAFFE does not consider that it is prudent to submit to the Electoral Commission of Jamaica the ethical questions which are normally dealt with by the political ombudsman,” the organisation said. “Saddling the ECJ with this responsibility overlooks the reality that its membership includes politicians.”

While The Gleaner, as it made clear previously, agrees with these sentiments, the return of political ombudsman in essentially its current form should last only into the medium term.

The office, in concert with an impeachment regime for legislators, should then transition to the Commissioner for Parliamentary and Political Conduct (CPPC), a role roughly analogous to the UK’s Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.

In addition to the political ombudsman’s current obligations, the CPPC would investigate complaints against legislators, including those egregious ones which, if proved true, would meet the standards for impeachment, after a ‘trial’ by the appropriate parliamentary tribunal.

After the compelling case against its plan for the political ombudsman, the government will hopefully retreat. It can easily amend the existing act to institute the powers it plans for ombudsman and subset of the ECJ. That’s an afternoon’s drafting.

The hard part is finding an ombudsman. Someone could be seconded to the post, say from the office of the DPP, until a permanent appointment is made.