Addressing Portmore's border issues

Errol Miller, Contributor

On Tuesday, February 15, Parliament debated the matter of the postponement of local government elections. During that debate, Member of Parliament Everald Warmington claimed that local government elections had to be postponed because the Electoral Commission erred in that it breached the boundaries that defined the municipality of Portmore. He correctly pointed to the fact that Parliament is due to consider the draft order on constituency boundaries that is to be tabled by the minister responsible for electoral matters. This is the final step before the constituency boundaries approved by Parliament can be recorded in the Gazette, after which they become legally binding for at least the next four years. As chairman of the Electoral Commission, I am obliged to set the record straight.

The Electoral Commission made no error in the General Review of Constituency Boundaries in St Catherine with respect to the boundaries of the municipality of Portmore. This is because the Constitution of Jamaica is the supreme law of the land and supersedes all other laws, regulations, orders, charters and resolutions. The Constitution prescribes the following:

Jamaica shall be divided into a minimum of 45 and a maximum of 65 constituencies.

Each parish shall have at least two constituencies.

An electoral quota shall be calculated from the number of registered electors on the voters' list divided by the number of constituencies.

As far as is practical, the sizes of all constituencies should be as close as possible to the electoral quota. However, no constituency should be less than two-thirds of the electoral quota or more than 50 per cent above the electoral quota.

Every four to six years, the Standing Committee of Boundaries of the Parliament shall conduct a general review of constituency boundaries and the number of constituencies into which Jamaica is divided.

Since 1979, the Standing Committee on Boundaries of Parliament has delegated the conduct of the General Review of boundaries to the Electoral Advisory Committee, and now to the Electoral Commission. The last General Review was conducted between March 2008 and February 2010. The Standing Committee on Boundaries of Parliament accepted the recommendations of the Report of the Electoral Commission on the General Review of Boundaries in February 2010 and the House of Representatives approved the recommendations of the Standing Committee on March 10, 2010. The next General Review is scheduled to commence in February 2014.

boundaries

The Parish Council Act gives parish councils the power to declare municipalities within their borders. Section 4 (1) of the Municipalities Act of May 2003 decrees that municipalities shall be governed by a council constituted of a mayor, elected directly by the eligible voters of the municipality, and councillors who represent electoral divisions that fall entirely within the boundaries of the municipality. One implication of Section 4 (1) is that members of municipality councils are also councillors of the parish in which the municipality is located. An untoward possibility of Section 4 (1) is that there could be areas of a municipality, geographically defined, which are not represented in the council of the municipality, although electors in those areas, so defined, could vote for the mayor.

At a particular point in the development of Portmore, the St Catherine Parish Council defined Portmore, geographically, as a town. In 2003, when Portmore was granted municipality status, the St Catherine Parish Council defined the boundaries of the municipality of Portmore to coincide exactly with the boundaries of 11 electoral divisions located in the general area regarded as Portmore. This was done to ensure that the municipality of Portmore complied with Section 4 (1) of the Municipalities Act, although there was not an exact coincidence between the boundaries of the town of Portmore, geographically defined, and the municipality of Portmore defined by the boundaries of electoral divisions. It was recognised in 2003 that future adjustments would need to be made to the boundaries defining the municipality of Portmore.

In the General Review of Constituency Boundaries conducted between March 2008 and February 2010, it was determined that the parish of St Catherine was entitled to two additional constituencies to the nine that it already had based on the number of electors registered in that parish. This was due principally to increases in the number of electors registered in the areas of Spanish Town and Portmore. One recommendation of the Electoral Commission Report on the General Review of Constituency Boundaries, that was accepted by the Standing Committee of Boundaries of the Parliament and approved by Parliament in March 2010, is that one new constituency in St Catherine should be added in the area regarded as Spanish Town and the other in the area regarded as Portmore.

additional division

Subsequently, the Electoral Commission recommended, and the minister of local government approved, that the number of electoral divisions in which Jamaica is divided be increased from 227 to 228 and that the additional division be allotted to St Catherine and located in Portmore.

The 11 electoral divisions that defined the municipality of Portmore in 2003 traversed three constituencies: one totally and two partially. These constituencies were St Catherine South East, St Catherine South and St Catherine South Central. The result of the General Review of Constituency Boundaries in St Catherine, which adds two new constituencies to that parish, and one additional electoral division to the parish of St Catherine that is to be allocated to the new constituency in Portmore, is that three constituencies of the 63 constituencies into which Jamaica will be divided will now fall totally within the area generally regarded as Portmore. Those three constituencies will have a total of 12 electoral divisions.

In 2003, the St Catherine Parish Council, for reasons of prudence and convenience, decided to use the boundaries of 11 electoral divisions to define the municipality of Portmore. The use of the boundaries of these 11 electoral divisions by the St Catherine Parish Council to define the municipality of Portmore placed no binding obligation on the Standing Committee on Boundaries of the Parliament with respect to those boundaries. Had the Electoral Commission been constrained by the 2003 definition of the municipality of Portmore in conducting the General Review completed in 2010, it would have denied Portmore the expanded representation it deserves by virtue of the increased number of registered electors in that section of St Catherine.

The General Review of Constituency Boundaries is a time-bound, constitutionally prescribed exercise. The boundaries of municipalities are determined by parish councils by the powers given by the Parish Councils Act. The former cannot be subservient to the latter. In addition, municipalities, by definition, are urban centres, the boundaries of which should not be regarded as fixed.

Professor Errol Miller is chairman of the Electoral Commission of Jamaica.