We have had reasons in recent times to comment on the overreaching bureaucrats at the Broadcasting Commission and their insidious attempts at inserting themselves in what ought to be commercial transactions.

Unfortunately, as the current spat between the commission and the radio station News Talk 93 FM is showing, the missteps, or more accurately, the crude lunges of the bureaucrats, are not confined to business. They now find themselves in danger of trampling on natural justice and of weakening Jamaica's proud reputation for freedom of the press, as they goose-step their way from good sense.

At the centre of the latest controversy involving the commission and the radio station News Talk 93 FM, are comments made by Dr Kingsley Stewart, a University of the West Indies (UWI) lecturer in sociology, who calls himself Ragashanti. Dr Stewart seeks to portray himself as the voice of the disfranchised ordinary Jamaican, often translated to mean a poor under-class. While there are glimpses of a useful engagement of a young, inner-city audience, in a voice that captures the cadence of the community, we believe, as do others, that Dr Stewart too often trivialises important issues. And his attempt to demonstrate that he is clued into the norms of his audience and his penchant for the risqué mark him to many as something of an exhibitionist and hardly a credit to the UWI.

But that is his style - even if it offends and sometimes gets him into trouble, as was the case in the recent series of shows on Indo-Jamaicans when he referred to members of that community in terms that most people, in today's Jamaica, ought to find offensive. There were complaints, too, about his general moderation of the programmes and the tone he allowed callers to adopt. Unlike Dr. Stewart's protestations, we would expect that someone of his education, training and, as he likes to project, 'street smarts', would be well aware of this.

The point though, is that Dr Stewart, either with help or on his own volition, soon understood the stupidity of his action and the hurt that he might have caused. He and the station for which he works, apologised on his show.

It is still not clear, however, whether the management of the station has a code of conduct to which it expects its staff and on-air personnel in particular to adhere. In any event, we would have expected that Dr Stewart and News Talk 93 FM would have received a severe and public reprimand. Instead, the bureaucrats of the Broadcasting Commission have recommended to the information minister that the station's operating licence be suspended. That is a heavy-handed and dangerous approach.

If the minister accepted this recommendation, there is an avenue of appeal to a special tribunal and to courts, although, in the latter case, it would be on a point of law. But natural justice ought to be from the start and throughout the entirety of the process.

Yet, under the Broadcasting and Rediffusion Act, the Broadcasting Commission is judge, jury and executioner in determining whether a broadcaster has breached the terms of his operating licence, and under Section 23 (1) (b) "require that the licensee justify its actions to the commission or otherwise to take such remedial action as may be specified in the notice." There is no provision for hearings.

The law may be an ass, but it can't be that stupid. And neither should the Broadcasting Commission. The way to promote responsibility in the media is not by having less of it.