Bunting says ECJ is destined to fail in political ombudsman role

By: edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com

Image caption: Senator Peter Bunting

Leader of Opposition Business in the Senate Peter Bunting says the passage of the Political Ombudsman (Interim) Amendment Act 2024 on Friday has set up the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) to fail at its first task to police the conduct of politicians in the run-up to the local government elections set for February 26.

After extensive debate on the controversial bill, the Upper House passed the proposed law, but not before a divide was called by the parliamentary Opposition. Eight government lawmakers voted in support of the bill while six opposition legislators rejected its passage.

A divide by the Opposition and a subsequent majority vote by government members of parliament also determined the passage of the bill in the Lower House on Tuesday.

Bunting argued that there were no regulations accompanying the bill and it remains unclear how the administrative machinery will be employed to carry out the role of the political ombudsman, little more than two weeks before the election.

He said the Government was being “arrogant and contemptuous” of Jamaicans in the manner in which it rushed the bill through Parliament.

Acting leader of government business, Aubyn Hill, who piloted the bill, defended the administration’s push, saying that the ECJ was the most appropriate entity to undertake the duties of the political ombudsman.

Hill said that the prominence of the ECJ nationally, regionally and internationally is the strongest reason for this.

The individual and collective lenses of the nine commissioners of the ECJ, said Hill, would be more effective in carrying out the tasks once confined to a single person. He said that the commissioners are required to exercise fairness and are bound by the Electoral Commission Interim Act to perform their functions within specified parameters.

Government Senator Kavan Gayle castigated the Opposition for raising concern at this point despite agreeing in principle to the subsuming of the OPO by the ECJ.

“What you are doing now on the eve of the election is creating a smoke screen,” Gayle said.

“This Opposition cannot be trusted. The people of Jamaica should not trust them and the way they are demonstrating their arguments in this regard they, too, must not trust themselves,” he added.

According to Gayle, the Opposition can only be described as an “ungrateful hitchhiker. You jump on the journey, ride along, and now when you almost reach the destination you are hopping off.”

But opposition Senator Donna Scott-Mottley said the issues around the bill have already descended into partisan political fray because the narrative that has been created is that the Opposition cannot be trusted.

VACANT SINCE 2022
She observed that the Memorandum of Objects and Reasons of the bill states that the OPO has been vacant since November 2022 when the previous officerholder’s contract expired.

Raising questions about good governance, Scott-Mottley asked whether the presentation of the bill just ahead of the election was in keeping with that principle.

“This bill is before us the day after nomination day when elections are due February 26. We have no body or persons who have the authority to deal with matters of this sort at this point in time after nomination day. Is that good governance?” she asked.

Like her colleagues in the Lower House, Scott-Mottley warned that transferring the role of the political ombudsman to the ECJ could plunge the electoral body into partisan political fray.

“There are many options available to you. You can appoint a tribunal. You can appoint an interim person,” she suggested.

“I urge the ECJ to, against all the odds, and in spite of what this Government is trying to embed and drag them into, to fight it and find a way to maintain their integrity. Once you enter the political arena, those missteps of which you will be judged are steps that you cannot recover from,” she said