Raymond Pryce,  Guest Columnist

That Jamaica is a country of contradiction is becoming truer than we are the land of wood and water. For how else can we describe the seeming 'parallel universe' occurrences that have been taking place over the last several months? Some have called it a pantomime.

Resulting from the situation where the same players enter and exit the stage in different scenes with scripts that are at variance to their own script while remaining in the same character. Ultimately, as a people, we will come to learn the real impact this has had on an already polarised society. In any regard, most onlookers watch, mostly stunned and sinking into deepening despair.

Small the Queen's Counsel

Among the persons who loom large at the commission is Queen's Counsel Hugh Small. Already well known in Jamaica's political, legal and social circles, Mr Small has the distinction in this matter as being counsel for the prime minister. Hugh Small, QC, has been an established favourite of the prime minister. As the public well knows, he had been selected by Bruce Golding to head the review of the country's libel laws. In the opinion of many, the navigation of that process by Mr Small may now need to be reviewed. It should be assessed as to whether the recommendations from the Small Committee were pre-emptive of a situation where, indeed, Jamaican journalists may want to bring information to the fore regarding the instant Coke affair, which our libel laws currently may prevent them from doing. In such a matter, it could be concluded that the Small selection in that matter was not coincidental to Mr Golding's political objectives. Similar considerations have already arisen with respect to the deliberate manner in which Mr Golding rebuffed the appointment of Dr Stephen Vasciannie to the post of solicitor general.

Golding and Lightbourne as co-defendants

An imbroglio ultimately arose. It was an early insight into the litigious experience of this administration. In that matter, Dorothy Lightbourne and Orette Bruce Golding were co-defendants. Four claimants, Daisy Coke, Michael Fennell, Edwin Jones and Pauline Findlay, dismissed members of the Public Service Commission, were protesting through the Supreme Court an allegation by Bruce Golding of improper conduct in the recommendation of Vasciannie for the post of solicitor general. History confirms that in the eyes of Bruce Golding, their successors on the PSC acted properly in the subsequent confirmation of Douglas Leys as Jamaica's solicitor general. From early in his term in office, therefore, the prime minister has telegraphed to the nation that Leys was the 'golden boy', fit for the post of solicitor general. It was a position that Mr Golding would reaffirm on a number of occasions, one such in a televised interview with Ian Boyne that was interestingly entitled 'Conversation with the Prime Minister'. Accordingly, Jamaicans are right to conclude that Mr Golding spoke in that interview as prime minister of Jamaica and not as leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).

Web of Deception

It is, therefore, no small point that the said Douglas Leys would come to describe the handling of the Christopher Coke extradition matter as, among other things, a "web of deception". Further, that the said Mr Leys has presented a statement and testimony under oath that describes as untrue the attorney general's account on specific material issues. Significant issues to the Coke extradition scandal which has proven to be a terrible saga that includes the death of more than 70 Jamaicans. More to the point, this stand-off is between two people in whom the prime minister has reposed his confidence. The first, Ms Lightbourne, a direct appointee of Golding, and the other, Mr Leys, a repository of Golding's confidence.

Also featuring in the matter is Queen's Counsel Mr Frank Phipps. He is the counsel appearing on behalf of the Jamaica Labour Party. So, if Mr Small is representing the prime minister, then Mr Phipps can be said to be representing both Mr Golding and Ms Lightbourne - as both are members of the Jamaica Labour Party. So, for Mr Phipps the situation is interestingly nuanced, as Ms Lightbourne, his client, has contradicted the JLP leader, his client, while Mr Small, the prime minister's client, is skillfully manoeuvring through the various strands of the aptly described "web of deception".

No Small Task

While the evidence is being presented at the commission of enquiry into the Coke extradition scandal, the business of government proceeds. Political activities and activism also proceed. Imagine, therefore, the gravity of the task that Mr Small has. Recall as well the useful interventions he has made to steer the minds of the commissioners and others to the fact that when this enquiry is finished, we still have a country to run. He has also, on several occasions, suggested that the prime minister, while anxious to give testimony before the commission, has engagements as prime minister that could see him out of the country.

These meetings are described as being with other dignitaries from other countries and developmental partners. On the afternoon of Tuesday, March 8, while Mr Small was again elucidating his client's national obligations and locating those within an expressed timeline, the leader of the JLP and prime minister was at Gordon House, no less, outlining a different set of obligations.

At Gordon House, in a press conference that afternoon, Mr Golding confessed knowledge of the fact that members of parliament from the JLP were not qualified under the Constitution of Jamaica to sit in the House of Representatives. He would, therefore, have also been confessing that he knew all along that under Jamaican law, said persons (five were named) were not properly nominated on nomination day for the general election of 2007. He outlined that he was deliberate in the steps he took to protect his political fortunes of being prime minister.

Defender of the Constitutional Rights of Jamaicans

In that same place in one of his many contributions to the proceedings, Mr Golding had declared that he would be willing to expend his own political capital to protect the constitutional rights of Jamaicans. True defenders of constitutional rights must begin with upholding and respecting the Constitution. The very enquiry now on at the Jamaica Conference Centre is seeking to determine if any wrongdoing had occurred in the extradition of Christopher Coke.

So while Mr Small is defending his client against suspicions of setting aside the Constitution for political considerations, his client is - at another venue confessing to well - setting aside the Constitution for political considerations. That is not a small distinction, though it may prove the distinction of Small as an attorney. It is a conundrum; it is a 'prekeh'. At the very least, it goes to the habit or tendency of Small's client. It reminds me of the positions advanced in the Supreme Court by the four claimants against the attorney general and the prime minister in their account of positions he took toward their recommendation from as early in his term as November 2007.

Act II, Scene I

The proceedings at the conference centre have proven to be enthralling and exciting. The matters being probed are of serious and significant national importance. Yet it is only Act One. The Parliament, as a venue and as a process, will soon upstage it, as the fiscal year is coming to a crashing end. As the curtains rise on the new fiscal year, the Government will be forced to come to terms with some immovable truths.

The Planning Institute of Jamaica has confirmed that poverty has risen to some 20 per cent. The fiscal year starts at the close of the 14th consecutive quarter of negative growth. Bruce Golding will lead into Duke Street this year knowing that the last time the Jamaican economy grew, Portia Simpson Miller was prime minister. He will have to sit across from her to present what many have called an election Budget and what others have suggested is his last.

Already, some interesting pronouncements have been coming from different units across the Government. One such has contended that inflation will fall even further in Jamaica. No mention or cognisance of the steady and steep increase in commodity and food prices globally. No serious reference to the impact sustained instability in the crude-oil sector could have on Jamaica. No quantification of the cost to the economy of outstanding payments to contractors. Three years later, there is no accounting as to how the gas tax has been used or even how much has been collected.

Court Jesters Enter Stage Left

In medieval times, Government heads had their court jester. Such a person held a critical post. It was not just banal entertainment. The court jester presented or otherwise parodied important information in a way that caused people to forget the misery of their lives. The art of distraction is a well-used tool. Hitler depended upon Joseph Goebbels. Recently, Mr Audley Shaw spoke at the Planning Institute of Jamaica's forum on growth-induced strategies to economic development. His surreal presentation was unreal. He dare not attempt a similar approach when he tables the Budget in Parliament in April. More anon.

Raymond Pryce is a broadcaster and chairman of the PNP Patriots. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com [2] and raymond_pryce@yahoo.co.uk [3].