Gordon Robinson | What’s happening with Constitutional Reform

On December 27, Minister Marlene told Nationwide News Network (NNN) she’s hoping a Bill to create a Jamaican Republic would be tabled, at the latest, early next legislative year.

She said:

“We’ve completed the suite of recommendations to be made in respect of the transition from the Constitutional Monarchy which has King Charles III of Jamaica as our Head of State changed to the establishment of the Office of President of the Republic of Jamaica.”

I wonder what she meant by a “suite” of recommendations? Last year March we were told we only had to swap out a White King for a Black King selected for us by the political parties that currently benefit from our dictatorial governance system. Minister Marlene also told NNN that her Constitutional Reform Committee (CRC) conducted “engagement with the public” as a result of which she realized “a lot of people just don’t know….and they make assumptions on wrong information or disinformation and proceed down a path…..and it has been both challenging and exciting at the same time to meet people who want to genuinely better understand what is happening.”

Minister Marlene, at which point during your journey around the Mulberry Bush to end where you started did you discover that people “don’t know what is happening” and “want to understand what is happening”? What have you done to educate these people so they can “understand what is happening”?

Although Marlene wasn’t asked that specific question during her NNN interview it sounded like she was answering it when she said:

“So we are now drafting the report which will go back to the Committee…”

WHAT? You mean the report isn’t being drafted by or on behalf of CRC? Who is drafting it? Based on whose instructions?

“…..and will inform the Cabinet Submission that will go to Cabinet and the drafting instructions for the first phase of the reform.”

So that’s it? After nine months of farcical pretence are we really going to simply implement the decision Government made before CRC was created?

When CRC’s terms of reference were crafted, spin-doctor authors outsmarted themselves, in their anxiety for pomposity, by using more words than necessary without over-exerting brain cells with minor details like research. So they included “establishment of the republic of Jamaica” as a Phase One task. It soon seemed nobody in Government understood or remembered what a Republic looks like and carelessly planned to copy the Barbados model.

But, as I wrote in December 2021 ( Becoming a real Republic): “My old friend, the Oxford English Dictionary , defines ‘Republic’ as ‘a country that is governed by a president and politicians elected by the people and where there is no King or Queen’. Guyana, a trailblazer in political independence, has a semi-Republic but there’s no true…Republic among English-speaking countries in the Caribbean Sea.”

I continued to pressure Government, especially in the Gleaner, to prove it grasped what it meant to be a Republic. By April (a month after creating CRC) Minister Marlene was still fumbling the constitutional football. She announced Phase One’s scope would have to be reduced.

On April 20 Gleaner quoted her: “If we don’t do something, how will we demonstrate to the people that we really are serious about the change?”

Ohhhhkayyyy…. By “something” do you mean “nothing real”? Or “anything however fake”? Why not do something for the people (e.g. comprehensive public education then in depth public consultation) instead of to the people?

Nah. Of course not! Politicians prefer the easy way out.

Minister Marlene (April): “So, as part of the reflection and consideration of all the issues, it may come down to a revision of how much is done in Phase One.

“Maybe we have to deal with the narrow question of just abolishing the monarch in the constitutional make up of Jamaica while we work out the other issues. I think those who have spoken on it are agreed that that is a move we should make…..”

Who spoke on it? “Those who have spoken on it” include PNP that’s adamant the Privy Council must leave with its King. In Phase One! “Those who have spoken on it” include this Grumpy Old Man who insists the King’s Westminster governance system must also go with him and be replaced by a genuinely democratic system. Such a system would include direct election of Head of Government; cabinet members chosen from outside parliament but vetted by the people’s parliamentary representatives; and an elected Senate. Others “who have spoken on it” agree we need a version of this new system.

What’s clear beyond peradventure is this nonsense about simply swapping a White King for an unelected, politically appointed Black King is arrant, asinine, anti-democratic hogwash. And you can rest assured we the people, whom Minister Marlene so condescendingly says “just don’t know what is happening” very much see through Government’s three-card-trick and very much knows what’s happening.

What’s happening is another Rerun (work it out; it’s comic) of Jamaica’s long established political sitcom titled “No change.” It features both political parties pretending to squabble over items that don’t affect their stranglehold on political power but coming together on policies that keep citizens as disconnected from government’s accountability and transparency as possible.

What’s happening is this Government wants a political platform talking point for the next General Election. It wants to be able to pat itself on the back by claiming Jamaica is a Republic while it remains a Monarchy in all but name.

What’s happening is a concerted attempt to keep the illusion of democracy using a system (Westminster) created to protect the Monarchy from a rebellion of land barons that threatened to overthrow the King. Westminster ensured the Monarchy’s continuation at the people’s expense. Westminster gave land barons authority over the landless and impoverished so long as they didn’t again challenge the Monarchy’s right to perpetual, exorbitant, unearned wealth based on heredity. In Jamaica, Westminster ensures absolute authority of a Jamaican Monarchy in the form of two entrenched political parties and guarantees wealthy contributors the major slice of the Jamaican pie so long as they agree to keep the parties rotating in power with significant donations in exchange for that slice.

What’s happening is this “Phase One” face card is simply a tool to trick us into giving the political parties what they want before the next general election. Upon that political event, CRC’s life will automatically end and there’s no future government will be obliged to re-engage them or even appoint anybody else. By this sly strategy, Phases Two and Three can be made to disappear as quickly as a magician’s rabbit.

So Minister Marlene can tell NNN the Constitutional Reform Bill is being drafted despite Government failing to undertake meaningful public education or consultation. It’s because, from all appearances and actions, it seems Government does NOT want real constitutional reform. It wants the illusion of reform that ends up being the same old same old.

But Government and Opposition need we the people to co-operate. They are banking on our gullibility. They think we don’t know what’s happening. They think we are simple minded fools over whose eyes they can easily pull wool so we won’t see what’s happening. So it’s up to us to prove them wrong. We must insist on real change or we’ll vote to keep the King. Why vote in favour of no change? Do we want the no-change that we already have and know or the no-change the political elite want to further entrench their autocracy?

We can force Government to turn over power to the people as happens in real republics. We can force Government it to send home the Privy Council (doesn’t even need a referendum) with the King. We can force Government to give us a real vote and actual political accountability.

Without that there can be no benefit whatsoever in abolishing the Monarchy except to make Jamaican politicians look good while boasting about bogus achievements. We must at least force Government to tell us WHY we can’t have a real Republic right away instead of supercilious Ministers feeding us patronizing pap. Insist on an explanation for the need to postpone any significant change until the twelfth of never. Demand to be told why you are not at least allowed to vote for your Head of Government directly. Force Government to explain why, after you vote for your Member of Parliament to represent your constituency concerns and oversee Government, should he/she be taken away from you and put in Cabinet so he/she has no time for you.

Insist Government tells you what’s REALLY happening since Minister Marlene’s view is you don’t know or understand.

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com