Editorial | Bad call on impeachment

Like Bruce Golding, this newspaper was surprised that the committee considering the reform to Jamaica’s Constitution rejected proposals for the impeachment of parliamentarians, which suggests that the island’s political parties may have done an about-face on the matter.

In the event, the parties, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), which forms the Government, and the People’s National Party (PNP), the Opposition, must clarify their current position on the matter.

For the record, as we have stated many times in the past, The Gleaner supports the idea of impeachment of legislators, as well as the right of constituents to recall their members of parliament (MPs), once sturdy guardrails are in place. The matter now is the details.

The question of the impeachment and recall has been on Jamaica’s agenda for several decades. Initially, though, the focus was primarily on the latter element – the right of voters to attempt to chuck out, before their end of their parliamentary terms, representatives who they believe are underperforming woefully.

Indeed, the suggestion, endorsed at the time by seven in 10 Jamaicans, was recommended in a 1992 report by the Stone Committee, chaired by a late sociologist and public intellectual Professor Carl Stone. The report was commissioned by the PNP government led by Michael Manley.

REPRISED

The idea was reprised by the JLP under Bruce Golding in the first half of the 2000s. A constitutional amendment, tabled by Prime Minister Golding in 2011, to give effect to the proposal, concentrated primarily on impeaching legislators for

- corruption.

- persistent neglect of duties as MPs and senators.

- abuse of official authority.

- deliberately misleading or intentionally abusing the privileges of Parliament.

- behaviour so serious in nature as to “render the holder of the office unfit to continue to hold that or any office, the holder of which performs a public function”.

In 2021, the PNP’s current leader, Mark Golding, essentially, resurrected Bruce Golding’s bill, which had been in limbo for a decade.

Mark Golding’s version, though, would, on its face, turn into impeachable offences some behaviours by legislators that did not specifically relate to their public functions. At the time, Jamaica was consumed with the question of whether the man seen in a video beating a woman with a stool was George Wright, a JLP MP who, ostensibly, now sits as an independent.

Against this backdrop, and the fact that the JLP had put the issue in its manifestos for three of the last four general elections, Bruce Golding was, understandably, taken aback that the Constitutional Reform Committee (CRC) rebuffed the idea. He had assumed that there was bipartisan consensus on impeachment.

The CRC’s argument is that most impeachable offences are likely to be criminal in nature and, therefore, should be properly tried in the courts rather than dealt with via a political process.

That exercise, they felt, could be manipulated to partisan ends, exacerbated by the fact that Parliament is divided along political lines. Impartial hearings, therefore, would be difficult.

We, however, stand with Mr Golding’s retort: “... If a potential conflict exists between impeachment and criminal proceedings, let’s remove triable offences from the definition of impeachable causes rather than shredding the idea altogether.”

EGREGIOUS CONDUCT

Indeed, there is much egregious conduct by legislators that does not meet the criminal standards but for which they should be held accountable before the next electoral cycle.

With respect to the committee’s concern that there would be the need for Parliament to establish its own investigative arm to deal with matters that arise among its members, three years ago, this newspaper recommended that the Office of the Political Ombudsman be reformed and expanded to become the Commissioner for Parliamentary and Political Conduct (CPPC).

In addition to the ombudsman’s current job of policing the code of political conduct between the parties, the CPPC would be the non-partisan body that investigates complaints against legislators, some of which would be matters that rise to impeachable offences.

The CPPC reports would form the basis of hearings by appropriate parliamentary committees or impeachment tribunals.

On the broader question of the recall of MPs, with which nine in 10 Jamaicans now agree, Stone had proposed that impeachment could not start without at least 51 per cent of the voters of a constituency signing a petition to that effect. That is twice the amount as required for launching an investigation for the recall of the mayor of Portmore, the only head of a municipality who is directly elected and the only official in Jamaica who can face such a process.

Stone also proposed that a recall petition for an MP would have to be reviewed by a constituency council before it could move forward.

The CRC made a wrong call on the impeachment question. Is it supported by the parties?