From left, Nicholson and Chuck
Robert Hart, Staff Reporter
MINISTER OF Justice, Senator A.J. Nicholson, is pushing for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to be established in the Constitution before the end of the next legislative year, despite signs of brewing contention between the Government and Opposition.
Senator Nicholson, who is also the Attorney-General, told The Sunday Gleaner last week that he was expecting the proposed replacement of Chapter Three of the Constitution to be approved by the Houses of Parliament even though there is current Opposition dissatisfaction and a requirement for a two-thirds majority vote.
"Oh yes, I have hope for it to be passed," Senator Nicholson said. The senator is the chairman of the joint select committee of Parliament examining the Bill to establish the Rights Charter. The Bill seeks to protect the rights of the people including the right to freedom of expression, life, liberty, and security in post-Independence Jamaica.
HEATED EXCHANGES
However the committee the third appointed since the issue was first broached in 1999 has so far met twice and sparked heated exchanges between the Attorney-General and Opposition Spokesman on Justice, Delroy Chuck. The committee is slated to meet again this week.
Mr. Chuck, one of the few returning members to the latest committee, has maintained that the Opposition will not support the current draft Charter as it does not reflect what was agreed and signed off by the Constitutional Commission and the previous joint select committee that tabled its report in November 2001.
At the same time, the Justice Minister has hinted at his concern that the Opposition could use its numbers to stymie the Bill, as the Constitutional amendment proposed requires a two-thirds majority (under Section 49 of the Constitution) to be passed in the Houses of Parliament. There are currently 26 Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Members of Parliament to the governing People's National Party's 34, meaning that a partisan vote could inevitably 'kill' the Charter.
The Opposition's concerns with the current Rights Bill relate to a range of issues. For one, both Mr. Chuck and Jamaica Labour Party leader Edward Seaga have argued that the current version of the Charter of Rights, tabled by the Government in April 2002, allows Parliament to pass laws that disregard the rights of the people under the "loose and wide" language of 'the public interest', 'public emergency', and 'public disaster'.
"Our understanding is that the burden should be on Parliament to demonstrably justify any law which can or does curtail the rights and freedoms of the citizen," Mr. Chuck said in a letter dated February 18, 2004, and sent to the Justice Minister earlier this month.
PASSING LAWS
In the current draft of the Rights Charter, it is stated that, "Parliament may, in periods of public disaster and public emergency, pass laws which abrogate, abridge or infringe the rights specified."
Among those rights are the right to freedom of movement within, into and out of the country; and the right to a fair hearing within a reasonable time (after an individual is charged with a criminal offence).
But Senator Nicholson claimed that the Opposition's concerns are addressed by a report, provided to the Joint Select Committtee in 2001 by constitutional lawyer Dr. Lloyd Barnett and former Solicitor-General Carl Rattray.
"The report of that (2001 parliamentary committee) essentially follows the (Barnett/Rattray) recommendations," Senator Nicholson said, suggesting that the Opposition had not read and was unaware of substantive adjustments made to the Bill.
The 2001 committee had a year earlier requested an analysis of the rationale for adopting the Constitutional Commission's format for the Charter.
"In particular it was recommended by them that the rights enshrined in the Charter should apply not only as between the State and citizen, but also between citizen and citizen," the Justice Minister told The Sunday Gleaner.
In 2002 a debate on the Bill, piloted by Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, was suspended when the Opposition Leader claimed the Government had returned to the House with a different Charter of Rights. However, Mr. Nicholson explained that the Government had actually returned with an 'indicative Bill' highlighting the changes that would come into effect if the Barnett/Rattray report provided to the joint select committee was adopted. The House, he said, was in fact expected to debate the approval of the Barnett/ Rattray recommendations and then subsequently amend and pass the Bill.
