Muted ECJ to break silence as political ombudsman

The silence of the nine commissioners of the Electoral Office of Jamaica (ECJ), in their role as political ombudsman since they accepted the responsibility to police the political code of conduct, has not escaped the attention of the woman who carried out that mandate for seven years.

The ECJ commissioners have been anointed as referee for nearly one year now, to monitor and take action against those who breach the political code of conduct. However, questions have been raised about whether actions and utterances of politicians since then should have required the commissioners to make their presence felt by publicly calling out political figures who seemingly violate the code.

Former Political Ombudsman Donna Parchment Brown told The Gleaner in a recent interview that, since February last year, when the nine ECJ commissioners took on the role of ombudsman, she has not seen or heard a public utterance from that group concerning its new mandate.

However, apart from the apparent silence that casts a shadow over the role of the commissioners as ombudsman, Parchment Brown is of the view that lawmakers made a grave error when they amended the law to allow political actors to preside as ombudsman.

She noted that under the previous legislation – The Political Ombudsman (Interim) Act – ‘no person shall be qualified for appointment to the Office of the Political Ombudsman’ if the individual is a member of the Senate or the House of Representatives.

Currently, one member of the Upper House, Senate President Tom Tavares-Finson, is a nominated Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) member of the ECJ. Although he is not a current member of parliament, Dr Dayton Campbell, the general secretary of the People’s National Party (PNP), who is a prospective candidate in the upcoming general election, sits on the ECJ as a PNP-nominated commissioner.

In a presentation to party supporters at the HEART Academy in Portmore, St Catherine, on Sunday, Campbell took the governing party to task for placing the role of the political ombudsman in the ECJ.

He warned against placing the “referee in a match” in a precarious position where he might end up cheering for one side. He also cautioned against the politicisation of the ECJ.

“If the political ombudsman rules against the PNP, mi aguh bawl out. So I don’t understand when they come into the ECJ, ‘bout office of political ombudsman – the office of the political ombudsman must be independent of the ECJ. The ECJ must be independent of politics,” he insisted.

Apart from Tavares-Finson and Campbell, two other political party representatives – Wensworth Skeffery of the PNP and Dr Aundre Franklin of the JLP, along with four selected commissioners and Director of Elections Glasspole Brown, have the task of policing the code of conduct at a time when the political temperature is rising rapidly as both parties campaign to win the hearts and minds of Jamaicans in national elections constitutionally due by September.

IN JEOPARDY

Parchment Brown argued that anything the ECJ said on a contentious matter would potentially have them being vilified or seen as being biased.

Parchment Brown said the political code of conduct established a number of standards for political behaviour dealing with matters from financial to how “we treat each other as citizens and also looking at verbal abuse and violence in the political space”.

The code of conduct relates to all political actors, whether they be party leader, members of parliament, senators, councillors or officials of political parties or those acting in the name of a political party.

She noted that the role of the ombudsman was not only relevant during the political season but it was a job that spans 365 days of the year. Parchment Brown indicated that if the same mandate was transferred to the ECJ, the work of its commissioners should have been more evident to the public.

The Gleaner has been reliably informed that the ECJ is taking steps to communicate with the public regarding its role as political ombudsman.

A reliable source told this newspaper that the ECJ had received complaints since it took on the job of ombudsman, noting that many of the issues had been resolved.

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com