Martin HenryDENNIS MORRISON'S Grace, Kennedy Foundation (GKF) lecture on 'The Citizen and the Law' could not have come at a better time. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, intended to strengthen citizens' rights and freedoms in the Constitution, is in stalemate in the Joint Select Committee of Parliament.
GKF wants its lecture series (this year is the 16th) to stimulate public discussion of important issues. If the past is anything to go by, 'The Citizen and the Law' is not likely to stimulate public discussion about law. And this is no fault of the lecture. There has been surprisingly little interest in discussing constitutional changes and crafting an appropriate legal code for Jamaica despite the fiery vehemence with which 'injustice' is protested.
The foundation, perhaps in conjunction with others, probably ought to exit the comfortable lecture room at the Pegasus to back a public education campaign on citizenship, rights, freedoms and responsibilities. In this regard thanks and praises are due to Jamaicans for Justice, which has produced an easy to read pocket-size booklet on the rights of citizens, particularly with respect to the operations of the police. But please note that
funding came from the Commonwealth Foundation and the German embassy - nothing local.
EARLY CHAPTER
Lawyer Morrison, in ranging 'all over the place', devoted an early chapter of the lecture to 'Police Powers'. In it he said, "Sections 15 and 19 of the Constitution provide explicit protection to citizens against deprivation of personal liberty and searches of the person and property, save in the manner authorised by law. In this regard, one of the potentially most contentious and difficult aspects of the relationship between citizen and State has to do with the powers of the police.
"In a society in which there has been for more than a generation an unacceptably high rate of criminal violence, there is often a temptation not to insist on 'pure' standards of police conduct. However I would like to suggest that it is in particular in these circumstances of troubled times that the State's responses must be in accordance with the law, save where the State is empowered exceptionally to derogate from fundamental rights if reasonably justifiable to meet a perceived threat."
The contemplation of a Charter of Rights and Freedoms to replace Chapter III of the Constitution, which has been the basic guarantee of citizen's rights and freedoms since 1962, should have prompted the Government into a major public education campaign, something which never happened in preparation for Independence or any time after that magic moment.
A Joint Select Committee (JSC) of Parliament is not just a device for political parties forming Government and Opposition to disagree with each other ad infinitum. The JSC actually allows citizens' input on the matter up for legislative consideration. The document for this discussion is usually a Green Paper inviting public response. This Charter of Rights and Freedoms Joint Select Committee can bicker endlessly behind the ignorance and unconcern of
citizens.
Mr. Morrison got Caribbean constitutional lawyer Professor Simeon McIntosh to tell us that, "The Constitution is the act that founds the nation and the sign that marks it. The act of writing a constitution is an act of signification: an expression and annunciation of collective identity. Thus, in the act of constitution, a democratic people agree to bind themselves to live within institutional structures that direct the exercise of political power, and within systems of meaning that are constitutive of their political culture."
HOW LITTLE WE KNOW
A little heavy. But when digested, the question arises, are we then a constitutional state considering how little we know and care for this piece of 'signification'?
Mr. Morrison, in lecture and response to question, also dealt with the nagging matter of 'the successor political class' adopting the Constitution with little reference to the common people whose lives as well it was to govern. But the lecturer correctly sees our rights and freedoms rooted in our long adoption of the English common law and the parliamentary democratic system, as well as in newly emerging international law when the Constitution was formulated. Its Bill of Rights provisions 'were patterned on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights'.
From Constitution and Bill of Rights and police powers Morrison ranged somewhat loosely over the growth of administrative law which regulates Government functions, the death penalty and mercy, the new Office of Public Defender, ganja, legal aid, family law, children's rights, libel and press freedom, and dispute resolution and with this the problems of delay, complexity and excessive costs which undermine justice.
On the very day of the lecture (last Tuesday, March 23), The Gleaner editorialised on alternative 'Dispute resolution in Flankers', praising the work of the community-based Peace and Justice Centre in the inner-city community of Flankers, Montego Bay, where citizens and the State have in the past collided over the rule of law.
But a great deal was left out in the selective survey of the citizen and the law, the Queen's Counsel lecturer noted at the end. A very useful purpose would have been served if more people got to thinking and talking seriously about the law, the object of which Caribbean jurist and former Vice-Chancellor of the UWI, Sir Roy Marshall, noted on the eve of his retirement in 1973 "is to regulate the relationships between the State itself and its citizens and between - citizens."
Martin Henry is a
communication specialist.
