I have following the recent discussions going on re the
Constitutional Reform Committee where it has come to light that the opposition
People’s National Party has refused to sign the final recommendations of the
committee due to its dissention regarding whether our final appellate
jurisdiction should be retained by the Judicial Committee of His Majesty’s
Privy Council or be transferred to the Caribbean Court of Justice.
The disagreement lies in what the opposition sees a
haphazard approach to reform in that the current ruling Jamaica Labour Party
wishes to separate the issue of the head of state from that of the final court.
In the PNP’s view, it is impossible to do one without the other but the JLP
does not see it that way. This has led to great debate as to whether or not, it
is possible for both to be done simultaneously, with no clear settlement on the
matter. My own position is somewhat similar to the government’s position to
have them separated however my version would have us getting rid of the Privy Council
but retaining the monarchy which is exactly what Canada, Australia and New
Zealand have all done so there is plenty of precedent for such a stance.
To further complicate the debate is the matter of timeline.
If the government had it gotten its way earlier, all of this would have taken
place before the monarchy had even changed hands in 2022 from Elizabeth II to
Charles III. The timeline then shifted to 2025 when we are due to have our next
general election but therein lies another problem as we would have to hold a
popular referendum which is unlikely to take place in that time window,
therefore the time would have to go beyond that unless we go the Barbados
route.
And what is the Barbados route?, you might ask, That is where the government unilaterally
changes the constitution without asking the people’s permission at all. No
doubt there are some who would love for this to be the case given the history
of referenda in the region? What history is that? Currently, Dominica, Barbados,
Guyana and Trinidad, all made the transition from realm to republic. While Barbados,
Belize, Dominica, Guyana and St. Lucia have moved from the JCPC to the CCJ. In
every single one of those cases, these changes have been done without calling a
referendum. Conversely, the monarchy referendum in St Vincent (2009) and the final
court referenda in Antigua (2018) and Grenada (2018) all flopped with the
population voting in favour of the status quo.
How you interpret these
events is dependent entirely on your point of view, do you value democracy more
than republicanism? or do you think republican aspirations should override the
democratic will of the people? Because contrary to what we are told, the two
are not synonymous, especially not when we are so often told that having a president
is more democratic than having The King yet in countries like Barbados, Dominica
and Trinidad, presidents are selected and not elected. To further emphasize the
point, I cannot help but notice an area of democratic deficit that no one
wishes to talk about. It stems from the fact that when both Barbados and
Trinidad became republics, neither country had a viable opposition. Starting
with Trinidad, upon independence in 1962, the People's National Movement was
already the established party in power with an established grip that it
continued to hold for decades culminating in the 1971 general elections where
it won more than 80% of the seats in parliament, therefore by the time it
established the republic in 1976, there was no entity in the country that could
challenge its decision given that its main rival the United National Congress
was not established until 1989, well after Trinidad became a republic. Similarly,
in Barbados, Mia Mottley’s Barbados Labour Party in the 2018 general election
won 100% of the seats in the Bajan Assembly and 3 years later they unilaterally
ushered in a republic. The trend here is quite obvious, in both cases the
government had no real opposition party to hold it accountable and it both
cases there was no popular vote on the matter. Contrast this with the case of
St Vincent in 2009 where there was not only a referendum but also where the
government had only 55% of seats in parliament meaning there was still viable
opposition. Given this history, it should come as no surprise that in Jamaica
where we pride ourselves on having a strong opposition as a counterweight to
the ruling party that the CRC has ended up with this result. All the talk about
how other Caribbean countries have managed to “accomplish” republicanism has
never once accounted for the fact that governments were only able to remove The
Crown when they had no democratic oversight to prevent them from messing with
the constitution in the first place, but that will not be the case in a robust
democracy such as ours.
Some would argue that this is less about democracy and more
about our sovereignty. I, however would take a different approach by carefully
examining this argument and if it has any merit. The common mantra goes that only
by replacing His Majesty with a president can we be truly sovereign. But is
that argument true?, first of all let us
explore what sovereignty means. According to Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and
Duties of States, for a state to be sovereign, it must satisfy four
conditions
i.
a permanent population;
ii.
a defined undisputed territory;
iii.
government capable of exercising sovereignty and
having a monopoly of the legitimate use of force;
iv.
the capacity to enter into relations with the
other states and be recognized by them.
So my question is, are there any
grounds to suggest that Jamaica is lacking in any of these four areas? Is there any country on earth that disputes
Jamaica’s right to exist as an independent entity in the international
community due to the lack of president? I can think of several countries who
has disputed sovereignty issues such as Palestine, Taiwan and Kosovo and yet
they are all republics with presidents. Clearly then there is no evidence
whatsoever to suggest that The King makes us less independent and a president
would make us more independent. That is but the story that republicans have
told themselves (and the rest of us) to justify their own political leanings.
The CRC has once again hit a roadblock which means any
attempt by the government to rush through a change in our constitution as it
likes will not happen, Jamaica is not Barbados and Andrew Holness is not Mia
Mottley. I have no doubt that should the government change at the next general election,
the PNP will try to push through its own version of constitutional reform which
will face opposition from the JLP therefore unless one party gains control of
all 63 seats, our sacred founding document will remain intact, a prospect that
no doubt fills republicans with dread. But having seen what took place in our
sister islands, it makes me value our democracy even more and I am proud to say
that I prize that far more than I do any republican sentiment.
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