D.K. Duncan THE RECENT adjournment for a further four weeks has effectively prevented the lawyers representing the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) from speedily responding to the Charles' allegations in the courts. This delay will no doubt bring the party into further disrepute and attract ridicule.
To have charges hanging over its head until December 14 that over 40 per cent of its delegates on a rigged list are either bogus, not properly registered or in contravention of the party's constitution, serve only to deepen the public's cynicism and breed contempt for the entire party.
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
In the absence of a public determination by the courts or an internal resolution, let us examine what appears to be on the table.
The JLP's secretariat has prepared a delegates list for voting purposes of approximately 4,600 persons. The Charles campaign team is challenging close to 2,000 of these persons.
The delegates being challenged come mainly from the constituency level. They are elected, in accordance with the constitution, by each constituency executive. The lists of names are submitted to the secretariat not later than 60 days prior to the conference or, as it is called, the 'annual general meeting of the all-island general council'.
Changes could be made up to 30 days before the conference in this case up to October 5, 2004. If there was no adequate response from the secretariat to representations concerning the integrity of the list, this was the time for a major challenge.
Preliminary or provisional lists were given to the Charles campaign team. The general secretary has stated publicly that at least five were supplied. If persons had died, migrated or were even ill, objections are constitutionally entertained up to 14 days before the conference.
Another opportunity for a challenge presented itself. The mounting of a 'strategic' challenge in the courts allowing only two working days before the scheduled conference have all the ingredients of a 'tangled web'.
TECHNICALITIES
A fundamental criterion for a JLP delegate is that the "persons must be registered to vote in national elections". This is what the secretariat asks the EOJ to verify.
At the constituency level, regulation two of the party's constitution directs that delegates are selected from seven categories. Rule 19 of the constitution is clear that persons falling in five of these categories have to be registered with the secretariat "during the month of March of each year".
The other two categories indoor agents and outdoor agents are not specifically named as being required to be registered. They are among the people who work on election day.
However, there is one of the other five categories the polling division committee defined by regulation one which may but does not necessarily include these persons.
The Charles team is arguing that all persons in all seven categories needed to be registered with the secretariat in March.
The secretariat is contending that these two categories are separate and not part of any group that had to be registered. This interpretation has guided the preparation of delegates lists over several years without dissent. A clear question of legal interpretation very little to do with the bona fides of persons on the list.
INTERNAL REMEDY
It is these two categories that gives the constituency executive the flexibility in accordance with regulation two to elect JLP supporters as delegates who are supportive of the candidate of their choice.
Some of these may even have been former National Democratic Movement (NDM) supporters who were accepted by the JLP as election day workers in 2002. The 2000 edition of the JLP's constitution, gives the Central Executive of the party wide powers to instantly amend rules and regulations. The membership of the Central Executive is not in dispute.
If there is need for clarification of an internal constitutional issue, Mr. Charles could take his case to an emergency meeting of this body, the highest authority of the party outside of its all-island general council, thereby exhausting another internal remedy. One Love, One Heart.
A dental surgeon, Dr. D.K. Duncan is a former Cabinet minister and general secretary in the PNP Administration of the 1970s.
