Opposition members boycott meeting of constitutional reform committee

Opposition Leader and President of the People’s National Party (PNP) Mark Golding, on Wednesday led a boycott of the joint select committee (JSC) of the Parliament that’s examining the Constitutional Amendment Bill.

Also missing from Wednesday’s meeting of the JSC, were the Member of Parliament for St Andrew Western, Anthony Hylton, and Senator Donna Scott-Mottley. Their absence point to the difficulty the constitutional reform process is facing, and will, continue to face. This, as the Opposition PNP and the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) continue to be miles apart on how Jamaica should transition to republic status.

For the PNP, the sticking point is the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) which it insists should be Jamaica’s final appellate court. For its part, the JLP is insisting on proceeding with replacing the British Monarchy in the first phase of the reform process while retaining the UK-based Privy Council as Jamaica’s final appellate court.

Golding wants both twinned together and taken in the first phase. To this end, he posed four questions to Prime Minister Andrew Holness when the JSC met for the first time on January 15. He said the answers would determine the Opposition’s future participation in the JSC deliberations. Those questions having not been answered, led the PNP to boycott the meeting.

Shortly after 10:00 Wednesday morning, committee chair Marlene Malahoo Forte who is the Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs said she was told Golding and Hylton would be absent. Hylton would later confirm that the Opposition members stayed away because the questions posed by Golding were not answered.

Malahoo Forte offered a reason as to why the questions were not answered.

“The questions which he (Golding) said he needed answers [for] from the head of government ...the normal protocol was not utilised,” the minister said.

“By this I mean I have no indication that the prime minister was formally written to. I have therefore concluded that it may be quite appropriate to use the very forum of this joint select committee to answer the questions on behalf of the prime minister but I will not do that today,” she added.