'No taxation without representation'
published: Thursday | February 21, 2008
Martin Henry
Let's launch a revolution! Our parliamentary representatives have been largely stripped of their powers to regulate taxation and expenditure from taxes. The executive of government has largely usurped these powers.
Parliamentary government had its genesis in struggles over taxation without representation in the councils of government. A rallying cry of the American Revolution was 'no taxation without representation'. And more than 100 years before, Barbados had a stand-off with the British government over taxation without representation which led to a declaration of independence in 1651. It took a fleet of ships dispatched by Oliver Cromwell to force a retraction of the declaration of independence and articles of surrender were drawn up in January 1652. At the time Jamaica was still a Spanish colony three years away from conquest by a Cromwelliam expeditionary force.
Up to 1944 the vast majority of Jamaicans were unenfranchised. Then came Universal Adult Suffrage which gave the vote to all Jamaicans over 21. Most of the newly enfranchised would not have known what they were voting for and most now still don't. Norman Manley, that great champion of suffrage, felt that literacy should be a requirement for the vote. He lost. Citizenship education certainly should be part of the process of democracy.
The people are not voting for a prime minister and a Cabinet. The people are voting for representatives to a parliament. Our Independence Constitution says, "Subject to the provisions of this constitution parliament may make laws for the peace, order and good government of Jamaica".
Control over taxation
And no function of parliament in the discharge of this general duty, is more important than the regulation of taxation and expenditure.
The Cabinet is drawn from the Parliament and is a creature of the Parliament to which it is "collectively responsible" for "the general direction and control of the Government of Jamaica".
So important is the control over taxation and expenditure by elected representatives, that constitutionally, other than the prime minister, the minister of finance is the only minister of government who cannot be drawn from the Senate but must come from the House of Representatives. Furthermore, money bills cannot originate in the unelected Senate, and the standing finance committee of Parliament is the whole House of Representatives.
The intention of the Constitution, therefore, and of parliamentary governance is that the elected representatives of the people should exercise significant direct control over taxation and expenditure. 'No taxation without representation'.
In a public conversation with a member of parliament it was really pathetic to hear from the horse's mouth the cry of impotence in representation. The fact of the matter is that members of parliament who are not ministers now have little influence over the budget, and ministers who are not the finance minister or prime minister have only slightly more influence over income and expenditure decisions.
Budget influence
The fact of the matter is that unelected technocrats and advisors now have more budget influence than members of parliament.
The revolution I am calling for is a revolution to reverse this state of affairs. Members of parliament may be shackled by their parties but are not as impotent as they think. What is to stop, for example, MPs of inner-city areas, a dozen or more of them, to form a cross-party coalition to force an inner-city renewal line on to the budget? Or for rural MPs, some 45 of them, to power on to the budget financing for a comprehensive rural development plan. What really is to stop narrower focus areas like water, or roads, or agricultural needs to be driven into the budget from the floor of Parliament?
The ascendancy of the political party, not the weakness of the Constitution, is the critical cause of the impotence of the elected representative to be a representative. Our so-called representatives are first and foremost servant, if not slaves, of the party and of its Leader anointed to be Prime Minister, if not monarch. But it was rebellion against the power of the monarch to tax without representation that led to the birth of Parliament and parliamentary democracy.
Let's have a peaceful revolution in the House and in the State this approaching budget season, the first for the Golding Government, a government which says it wants to do so much to restore the power of Parliament.
Martin Henry is a communication specialist.
