Vernon Daley

I see the Electoral Commission has written to House Leader Dr. Peter Phillips objecting to the Senate's amendment to legislation dealing with open voting.

Director of Elections Danville Walker, who is also a member of the commission, was quoted in the Jamaica Observer over the weekend as saying: "We have huge problems with the amendment. We have a problem with any amendment to anything the commission puts forward. There is a convention that whatever the commission puts forward, it is enacted without any amendment."

As far as I can see, that is a blatant attempt to stick up parliament and get its members to abandon their duty to the people of the country. The legislature's obligation to make laws for the good government of Jamaica cannot yield to the dictates of the commission.

The director of elections emailed me last week following the publication of my column, in which I applauded the Senate for amending the three election bills which aim to impose a mandatory minimum three-year sentence and fine for open voting.

In his cordial email, Mr. Walker questioned the concerns raised by parliamentarians at this stage, given the elaborate process involved in drafting the bills and the many bright legal minds who would have seen them before they went to the House. In my response, I told him I could not accept that as a sound argument.

It doesn't matter how many technocrats see the proposed legislation before, it's parliament which has the final duty to make sure that what is passed is in the best interest of the country. The legislators are accountable to the people in a way that technocrats and ordinary public servants are not.

Should not shirk duty

Each level of the legislative process is meant to refine the proposed law to make it a better instrument and it so happens that the parliament sits at the top of that pyramid. In fact, those politicians who are members of the commission would commit no sin if they change their minds about proposed legislation when they sit as parliamentarians to consider the matter afresh.

Parliamentarians have a special constitutional duty and they shouldn't shirk that for some romantic notion of convention.

Those who oppose the mandatory sentence in the bills have set out clearly their arguments for doing so. What we need to hear from those who would retain the provisions are better arguments that can stand up to scrutiny.

If the House decides to reject the Senate's amendment and pass the bills, then its members need to give the nation some justification beyond saying that it's the tradition to go with whatever is proposed by election officials. If they can't do that, then we might as well turn over all our law-making to Danville and the crew.

Meanwhile, when is the election due? We in the media keep saying the election is constitutionally due in October but that is not the case. The due date is mid-February next year. The confusion has arisen because the last election was held on October 16, 2002.

However, the date the election was last held is irrelevant. What is important in calculating the five-year term is the date parliament had its first sitting after the last election. In this case, that was November 14, 2002, which means the life of this current parliament expires on November 13 this year.

The Prime Minister can wait on the term to end naturally in November or she can choose to dissolve parliament prematurely. In either case, she would have up to three months within which to go to the polls.

All of this, of course, is academic because the word around is that the big day is some time in July.

Vernon Daley is a journalist. Send comments to: vernon.daley@gmail.com.