Bruce Golding, the Opposition Leader, having given short shrift to our observation that his radical proposal demands serious thought and deep and mature debate, is insisting that if his party wins next month's general election he will, within his first 100 days, bring legislation for a fixed election date.

While Mr. Golding, during his days in the National Democratic Movement (NDM), discussed the idea and made it an issue for discussion on his return to the Jamaica Labour Party, this matter has not been a central theme of the JLP in the four and half years he has been back in that party. At least it has not been robustly discussed by the party, or not publicly so. And when Mr. Golding used to talk much about the proposal it was in the context of a presidential system with a clear separation of powers.

So, Mr. Golding will probably now have to make the matter a key policy plank for the remainder of this campaign.

Our fundamental concern, as we indicated before, is not whether having a fixed election date is good or bad for Jamaica. Rather, the issue at hand is whether it can be achieved with the ease that Mr. Golding suggests, and without a radical overhaul of the Jamaican Constitution.

In a way, in dealing with this issue, Mr. Golding is sounding rather much like P.J. Patterson, the former Prime Minister, when he attempted to remove the Privy Council as Jamaica's court of last resort and substitute it with the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). Mr. Golding and the JLP were among those who opposed the move. He could well find himself attempting to escape the petard of thatsuccess.

The Opposition Leader argues that he can achieve his end by amending, with a simple parliamentary majority, Section 64 (1) of the Constitution, which is not entrenched. That clause gives authority to the Prime Minister to advise the Governor-General when to dissolve the legislature, thus triggering an election. No entrenchment, no difficulty - which was Mr. Patterson's line of reasoning in the CCJ issue.

Whether logically or not, the law lords held that while the Privy Council was not constitutionally entrenched, its removal would impact another entrenched clause, covering the Court of Appeal to which the CCJ would be a superior court.

Mr. Golding, therefore, could well find himself confronted with this line of argument with regard to other entrenched clauses giving the Prime Minister the power to command the dissolution of Parliament. However, the removal of these clauses would require special parliamentary majorities, the long laying of bills and endorsement by referenda.

But assuming that Mr. Golding is correct and that the change can be affected by a simple majority, so too can it be easily reversed by the next Parliament with a simple majority. The election date, whether fixed or not, could become a parliamentary yo-yo.

It is not enough for Mr. Golding to offer that other jurisdictions have instituted fixed election dates, without a full examination of their constitutional arrangements and/or the consensus that allowed the changes to happen. Any failure of this could cause Mr. Golding to meet his opponents in a place other than the CCJ.

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