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Imagine, the GG needs a visa to go to the UK!
Friday, August 31, 2007
Dear Editor,
We note the Jamaica Labour Party's (further) promise, and the welcome given by two Human Rights groups to the "pledge", to have the Charter of Rights entrenched in the Jamaican constitution (Daily Observer, August 4, 2007). According to the JLP's general secretary, "It's a commitment that we have to ensure that it is entrenched as soon as possible."
We, too, welcome the pledge, but we wish, like all Jamaicans, to know what exactly that commitment means. What the Jamaican family certainly must be told is whether the commitment by the JLP "to act on it immediately", in reference to the Charter of Rights, is one that is being given regardless of which party forms the next administration. Is the leadership of the JLP willing to "change course" from a posture of non co-operation, if the people decide that their party should continue on the course of Opposition?
Constitutional amendments of this nature, not unlike the replacement of Jamaica's foreign head of state by our own indigenous president, for example, require from start to finish the co-operation of the government and the parliamentary Opposition.
Since 1995, when Parliament accepted the Report of its Joint Select Committee on Constitutional and Electoral Reform, under the chairmanship of then attorney-general, David Coore, co-operation by the Opposition on constitutional and several other issues has gone through the window.
This has been so, despite the constant urgings of former Prime Minister PJ Patterson for them to discard the mantra of "oppose, oppose, oppose", if even in relation to those constitutional issues on which there have been substantial agreement since 1995.
For, make no mistake, the People's National Party has never changed course or wavered, either in our commitment or our willingness to co-operate in addressing all matters relating to the fact that:
* Our head of state is the hereditary monarch of a country which, now, no Jamaican, including her own representative here, can enter without a visa.
* Our legal system is governed by a final Court of Appeal that sits in the said foreign country and which our litigants and local attorneys cannot enter as of right.
* The provisions of our constitution in respect of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms are out-of-date, and do not reflect substantial developments that have taken place internationally, over time.
* Our Constitution is the product of an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and hence, does not derive its basic legal authority from the will and act of the Jamaican people.
The leadership of the JLP therefore needs to give to Jamaica further and better particulars concerning the "pledge" that they are making.
A J Nicholson
Attorney General and Minister of Justice
Kingston
Friday, August 31, 2007
Dear Editor,
We note the Jamaica Labour Party's (further) promise, and the welcome given by two Human Rights groups to the "pledge", to have the Charter of Rights entrenched in the Jamaican constitution (Daily Observer, August 4, 2007). According to the JLP's general secretary, "It's a commitment that we have to ensure that it is entrenched as soon as possible."
We, too, welcome the pledge, but we wish, like all Jamaicans, to know what exactly that commitment means. What the Jamaican family certainly must be told is whether the commitment by the JLP "to act on it immediately", in reference to the Charter of Rights, is one that is being given regardless of which party forms the next administration. Is the leadership of the JLP willing to "change course" from a posture of non co-operation, if the people decide that their party should continue on the course of Opposition?
Constitutional amendments of this nature, not unlike the replacement of Jamaica's foreign head of state by our own indigenous president, for example, require from start to finish the co-operation of the government and the parliamentary Opposition.
Since 1995, when Parliament accepted the Report of its Joint Select Committee on Constitutional and Electoral Reform, under the chairmanship of then attorney-general, David Coore, co-operation by the Opposition on constitutional and several other issues has gone through the window.
This has been so, despite the constant urgings of former Prime Minister PJ Patterson for them to discard the mantra of "oppose, oppose, oppose", if even in relation to those constitutional issues on which there have been substantial agreement since 1995.
For, make no mistake, the People's National Party has never changed course or wavered, either in our commitment or our willingness to co-operate in addressing all matters relating to the fact that:
* Our head of state is the hereditary monarch of a country which, now, no Jamaican, including her own representative here, can enter without a visa.
* Our legal system is governed by a final Court of Appeal that sits in the said foreign country and which our litigants and local attorneys cannot enter as of right.
* The provisions of our constitution in respect of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms are out-of-date, and do not reflect substantial developments that have taken place internationally, over time.
* Our Constitution is the product of an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and hence, does not derive its basic legal authority from the will and act of the Jamaican people.
The leadership of the JLP therefore needs to give to Jamaica further and better particulars concerning the "pledge" that they are making.
A J Nicholson
Attorney General and Minister of Justice
Kingston