Consultations may delay tabling of republic status legislation

The Holness administration says it cannot definitively say whether a Bill to remove the British monarch as Jamaica's head of state will be laid in Parliament this month as committed because of calls to accommodate wider consultations. 

"I don't know if it's gonna make it, but if it doesn't there's a reasonable explanation as to why it has not made it on time," said Information Minister Robert Morgan at a post-Cabinet press briefing on Wednesday.

"Consultation is very important and especially for a matter like this which will impact the future of every single Jamaican."

Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced a Constitutional Reform Committee in March, indicating then that work for the first of three phases should be wrapped up in May with the Bill to change Jamaica into a republic. 

In April, committee chairman Marlene Malahoo Forte, who is the Minister of Legal and Constitutional Affairs, announced that there was consensus for a ceremonial president but has faced criticisms from several groups on the extent of its consultations before arriving at the position.  

The Information Minister argued that responding to those issues has impacted the pace of the committee's work plan. 

"At the beginning of the process there was a hope that because of the restricted matter that was to be contemplated, which was the republic, ...[and] based on the fact that there was consensus nationally that Jamaica should become a republic, that there could have been a tabling of such a Bill," he said, adding "however, several persons in the media and civil society said that we are moving so fast - 'why are we in such a rush to go from constitutional monarchy to republic?' and they called for even wider consultations than have been done for the last 60 odd years. So, the minister of legal and constitutional affairs has been consulting." 

Morgan said: "Based on all that is happening, I don't know if on one hand you say we're moving too fast, you're gonna hold us when we have slowed down a bit to accommodate the concerns of those who said we're moving too fast that we have failed in our commitment to deliver the Bill at the timeline that we initially said.”

The timeline is sensitive if the administration wants the change before the next general election, which is constitutionally due September 2025.

The Bill will have to be laid before each houses of parliament three months before debate and then await a further three months for a vote.

Then the country will have to be mobilised to vote in a referendum. 

The constitutional committee has held at least three major town hall-type discussions in St James and Manchester.

It has also met with a number of civil society organisations including the Jamaican Language Unit and Jamaica Left Alliance for National Democracy and Socialism (Jamaica LANDS). 

It has met nine times up to May 11 and has released minutes of the first three meetings, bowing to pressure from groups such as the Advocates Network and the National Integrity Action, which have called for the talks to be open to the public. 

Some of the contentious issues regarding the transition to a republic include the role of the president and how that person will be selected.

The ruling Jamaica Labour Party is pushing for a joint sitting of the Houses, while the Opposition People's National Party wants a separate vote in each House where at least one Opposition senator will be required for a two-third approval.

- Jovan Johnson

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