Caribbean & Central America - August 2012 (ISSN 1741-4458)

On 6 August, Jamaica celebrated 50 years of independence from Britain with renewed pledges to resolve two constitutional challenges: replacing Queen Elizabeth II as head of state with a Jamaican president and replacing the UK’s Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as the final court of appeal.

Both main parties, the ruling People’s National Party (PNP) led by Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, and the opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) are agreed in principle on the desirability of a Jamaican head of state.  On 26 July, Justice Minister Mark Golding said that he expects a draft bill to establish a republic to be ready by September. 

The political position on the abolition of appeals to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in favour of the CCJ is more complicated.  The government has tabled bills in parliament to pave the way for this move.  As a constitutional amendment, however, a two-thirds majority is required in both houses of parliament, and while the government has that in the lower house (with 42 out of 63 seats), it does not in the Senate (with 13 out of 20 senators) – and the JLP has said that it will only support the proposed change if it is first approved in a referendum.

The government is holding out against a referendum, with Mark Golding saying: “We disagree with them [the opposition] on that issue.  It’s not legally required or constitutionally required.  We think it is a bad idea to be having issues that do not require referendum to be dealt with in that way.”

The opposition is also using the debate over the twin constitutional issues as a means of highlighting what is sees as the government’s lack of progress on the economy.  During the recent budget debate in parliament, opposition leader Andrew Holness told the government: “You will have my support when you tell me how the CCJ and Queen are going to help end poverty in Jamaica.” 

On this latter point, the opposition claims that the government will not have a new agreement with the IMF in place until 2013.  The government says it will have a new agreement in place with the IMF by the end of the year, with an IMF negotiating team due in Jamaica in September.