ROCKY HALTS MARCH
Cabinet secretary pick declines offer amid constitutional furore
Published:Friday | September 16, 2022 | 12:14 AMKimone Francis/Senior Staff Reporter
Lieutenant General Rocky Meade’s decision to officially decline the appointment of Cabinet secretary is an indictment on the Public Service Commission (PSC) and the Government, a civil-society advocate and the parliamentary Opposition have concluded.
Meade, in a statement from the Office of the Prime Minister late Thursday, said that he could not accept the appointment amid concerns raised that it was in breach of the Jamaican Constitution.
“Although I was invited by the Public Service Commission to be considered for the post while I was still a serving officer, the current public discourse does not provide a sufficiently settled environment for the assumption of such a significant office and I will, therefore, seek His Excellency’s understanding of my decision to decline,” said Meade, the former chief of defence staff of the Jamaica Defence Force.
The Gleaner reported on Wednesday that questions and concerns had been raised in relation to Section 92 (1) of the Constitution, which stipulates that the person appointed Cabinet secretary must come from the public service.
The secretary to the Cabinet is appointed by the governor general, acting on the recommendation of the prime minister, and must be selected from a list of public officers submitted by the PSC.
Meade retired as army chief in January.
“The Government has completely bounced this appointment,” Opposition Spokesperson on Justice Donna Scott Mottley said in a Gleaner interview late Thursday.
“It was unfortunate that its offices were not familiar with the provisions in the Constitution. As Rocky said, he was invited by the Public Service Commission to apply. That is also an indictment on the commission,” she added.
The Holness administration is yet to comment on the constitutional controversy, which public commentator Carol Narcisse said has become a pattern of “misstep and doubling down”.
Several attempts by The Gleaner to reach Attorney General Dr Derrick McKoy and PSC Chairman Alvin McIntosh were unsuccessful.
De facto Information Minister Robert Morgan declined to comment on the matter when contacted by The Gleaner.
Man of integrity
Narcisse said Meade, who she described as a man of integrity with an understanding of principle and a long and illustrious career of upholding the laws and Constitution of Jamaica, has unsurprisingly seized the day by cauterising “potentially grave embarrassment”.
She said he has done the right thing in declining the offer.
“What is distressing is that I have lost count of how many times now the Government has acted in a manner that is outside of the Constitution [and] has had to be corrected on constitutional matters,” Narcisse said.
She said that the Government’s continued foul-ups on constitutional matters are concerning and unacceptable, noting that it has “an entire bureaucracy” at its disposal to provide advice, citing the Attorney General’s Chambers, the Ministry of Legal and Constitutional Affairs, and the Ministry of Justice.
“It has several arms to which we pay lots of money in taxes to advise it, and yet it continues to blunder in too many instances where the Constitution, the laws, and national regulations and provisions are concerned, putting people like Rocky Meade in an embarrassing position,” she said.
She said that it must be the last time that the Government acts without doing the basic fact-finding on the legal framework.
Constitutional lawyer Michael Hylton, KC, said nothing less was expected of Meade than to decline the appointment.
“I know the gentleman. He is somebody I have the highest regard for and I think he did absolutely the right thing,” said Hylton, adding that “the Constitution was fairly clear”.