Edmond Campbell, News Coordinator

Parliament has ratified an amendment to three election bills, paving the way for sanctions to be imposed on persons who display their ballots in an election.

Leader of Government Business in the House of Representatives, Dr. Peter Phillips, told his colleagues in the House of Representatives yesterday that the Electoral Commission had written to him endorsing the amendments by the Senate.

The Electoral Commission had first recommended that the sentencing for violation of the law be mandatory.

Did not go down well

But the Senate amended that provision, giving the judiciary discretion in handing down judgement. This did not go down well with the electoral body, which argued that this move could interfere with a convention that recommendations submitted by the commission should be enacted without amendment.

Several lawyers in both Houses of Parliament rejected the argument, saying that Parliament was the supreme body for making laws and had the right to effect amendments.

In the debate to approve the Senate's amendment yesterday, Dr. Phillips said the adoption of the amendment by the commission clears the way for the House to pass the bills.

The bills are the Representation of the People Act, the Kingston and St. Andrew Corporation Act and the Parish Council Act.

Minimum sentencing

In a report to Parliament, the commission also proposed that 17 sections of the three pieces of legislation with mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines be removed so that the laws could be consistent.

"Having accepted the report, we will be in a position to have Cabinet issue drafting instructions to the Chief Parliamentary Counsel so that the necessary amendments which flow from the acceptance of this report can be moved," said Dr. Phillips.

During yesterday's debate, Opposition Spokesman on Justice, Delroy Chuck, hailed the commission's acceptance of the amendment as a victory for parliamentary democracy, contending that the convention between Parliament and the election body must be secondary to parliamentary approval.

But his colleague for North Central St. Andrew, Karl Samuda, said: "It retains the long-standing tradition that we must seek to uphold - the arrangement by which matters sent to this House by the Electoral Commission, the fact that we have agreed to accept it without amendment."

Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, in announcing August 27 as the date for the next general election, said she was giving Parliament enough time to pass the bills.

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com