Ronald Thwaites | Wrong-footedness

The bumbling multiplied last week. First, can the Government explain why they have backed themselves into another losing legal corner in order to keep Ms Llewellyn in office for a short while longer? No one is irreplaceable. And does this Government care what effect their expensive intransigence (legal fees and political capital aren’t cheap!) is having on the DPP’s reputation any more than they were concerned about dragging Ms Curtis, the House clerk, through their mud? Why are they doing this? Their poor judgement is both poor governance and bad politics.

LOSERS IN COURT

The public should be concerned about the succession of legal issues where this administration has been proved wrong-footed by the courts. In 2010, it was the stubbornly wrong advice about the extradition law in relation to Señor Dudus. Since then, recall the pre-signed Senate resignations, the “acting” chief justice charade, the wicked beating which they took in the NIDS debacle; the striking down of the SOEs and now Friday’s “big lick” by the full court.

Repeated wrong-footedness demeans trust. No one benefits from that. Mistrust colts the game of statecraft well beyond the tenure of any administration. Either the Government is getting inferior legal representation or choosing to ignore good counsel.

Loyal Tom Tavares-Finson and the new parliamentary clerk did their cause no favours in trying to parse away the injury done Ms Valrie Curtis. Please don’t insult her and us with any left-handed compliments until the wrong done her has been corrected. The hardest thing for a bully to do is to say sorry. But healthy relationships in public life, as in love life, require the capacity to back down and heal mistakes.

THE RIGHT WAY

Decency demands greatness of spirit. That’s what Pearnel Charles Sr and Dr Michele Charles showed in their visit to the abused Ms Curtis. Their message was unspoken, clear and admirable. Their gesture, the opposite of the wrong-footedness of their colleagues, earns them moral and political credits that others have forfeited. What a contrast!

EVIL OF TOBACCO

Last week, the United Kingdom Parliament approved legislation preventing the sale of tobacco products to all persons aged 15 and under. We have been dawdling over our Tobacco Control Bill for upwards of 15 years. There is a comparable act from Trinidad which we could have adapted and adopted long ago if we were really committed, beyond expensive and ineffective public relations, to health and wellness. There is no upside to tobacco use. Smoking is nasty and kills. It is impossible to be healthy if you become addicted to smoking. It is a deceit to argue that tobacco use is a personal issue. Not when the community is compromised by the inevitable outcomes and loses billions off it every year.

Independence was supposed to free us from the constraints of colonial power. But what we see, as in this instance, is the “mother country” being serious about law reform for social good while we use freedom to squabble among ourselves. Now isn’t that wrong-footedness!

ON CEMETERIES AND GARBAGE

On July 17 2018, I moved the following motion in the House of Representatives:

“Given the challenges that the National Solid Waste Management Authority has to keep Jamaica clean, be it resolved that responsibility for public cleansing be reverted to the municipal corporations.”

True to the form of a dysfunctional Parliament where tribal considerations, loudmouths and bullies prevail, this motion was never allowed to be debated.

As a young person before 1962, I was taught to make at least a yearly visit to the graves of family members at the May Pen Cemetery. On those occasions the elders would tell life stories of those buried there. You learned to respect the past, know yourself better and confront your own mortality. The place was clean and ordered. Now the place is an unkempt jungle, tombstones destroyed, many graves desecrated. And it is the same in other burial grounds. Money has been voted for upkeep and stolen and now we have a stand-off between the municipal corporations and the NSWMA as to who is responsible. No one cares, no one is ever held responsible, everyone has a “permanent post” and the mess on the ground gets worse.

If the councillors are not mature and efficient enough to take responsibility to keep their divisions clean, they might as well not exist.

HIDING CORRUPTION

On November 14, 2017, I moved the following motion in the House of Representatives: “Be it resolved that this Honourable House consider, review and where necessary modernise the Access to Information Act.”

Of course debate on this subject was never entertained. “Whey yu a ask dat far? Siddung! Yu lose the election. Yu soon lose your seat.”

Last week the nation found out again the real reason for withholding the auditor general’s findings from which many of us have been distracted by the Speaker’s antics. Tax Administration Jamaica refuses to disclose the names of those from whom this Government has leased office space, still left empty while paying out hundreds of millions of our money sometimes, it is asserted, in foreign exchange. What a scam!

Well, this posture of secrecy reinforces the need to widen the scope of the Access to Information Act, and make sure Data Protection legislation conforms with it. There must be nothing secret about how taxpayer money is being spent. Ask yourself why would the Cabinet not immediately authorise the disclosure of all the details of these and other such transactions if there is nothing to hide? Or must they be carried to court to force them – once more to lose?

When the Auditor General and Integrity Commission reports are withheld or their findings ignored and when they try to avoid the clear findings of the court, public trust is eroded, the political craft is discredited and the majority will become more convinced that Government is corrupt and wrong-footed. That can never be good.

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the principal of St Michael’s College at The UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.