Nicholson doubts Ja will resume capital punishment

BY ALICIA DUNKLEY Senior Staff Reporter dunkleya@jamaicaobserver.com

Friday, April 01, 2011

OPPOSITION senator A J Nicholson yesterday expressed doubt that Jamaica would ever resume capital punishment whether it adopts the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as its final court of appeal or remains with the United Kingdom Privy Council.

Nicholson, the leader of opposition business in the Upper House, also made it clear that while he will vote in favour of the new Charter of Rights Bill when senators cast their votes today, he will abstain from voting on the companion bill, which will remove the five-year stricture for the carrying out of capital punishment.

"I voted for the abolition of the death penalty. I say this with the greatest of respect, I don't believe the death penalty is ever going to be carried out in Jamaica again," Nicholson said yesterday in the Senate debate on the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, which will replace Chapter III of the present Constitution. Its companion provision, An Act to Amend the Constitution of Jamaica, will essentially void the Pratt and Morgan ruling of the Privy Council.

Under the Pratt and Morgan Ruling a death row inmate cannot be executed if the appeals process goes over five years from the sentencing date.

Last Tuesday, the Lower House voted on both Bills. The Charter of Rights received 51 votes in favour, while the companion bill received 50 votes, as Opposition MP Ronald Thwaites argued that he could not vote in favour of the death penalty. Thwaites had also argued that it was a contradiction to pass both Bills.

Yesterday, Nicholson voiced a similar argument.

"I won't vote against it but I am not going to vote for it. We shouldn't be passing a Charter of Rights and Freedoms and at the same time passing a Bill that has to do with the right to life," Nicholson explained, noting that the two were not compatible.

"I condemn no one who is for the death penalty... but I am not certain this piece of legislation (Constitutional Amendment Bill) can withstand scrutiny before the Privy Council, and since I am not certain I can't vote for it and I can't vote against it," he added.

Senator Nicholson said that although Caribbean neighbours Barbados and Belize enacted similar legislation to change their constitution and immediately moved from the Privy Council to the CCJ, that move made no difference as the CCJ has ruled that it would not be going the Pratt and Morgan route but would be dealing with such matters on a "case-by-case basis".

Nicholson had last week called for at least another month for the Upper House to look at the provisions while maintaining that Opposition senators had no intention of withholding their vote. Senator Nicholson, who was at pains to point out that the call was justified, given that an entire chapter of the constitution was being uprooted, had taken issue with Prime Minister Bruce Golding's insistence that the Bills — which had been passed by the Lower House last Tuesday — should have been pushed through by the Senate by this week.

"The Senate is supposed to be a deliberative body, it's not a rubber stamp of the other place (Lower House). I myself take it as an affront if Bills are sent to this House not only with the expectation [but] with the edict that it must be passed in one week. I take personal affront. If Bills are sent to us we must be able to deliberate," he said.

"This is not about Nicholson, this is about the people's business. It is my respectful view that it should not be sent to us and [we are] told that it should be passed within a week," he said.

In the meantime, Nicholson, who noted that he was "hauled over the coals" by the media for his insistence that the Senate be given more time, said his intent had been misread.

"I really took umbrage because I was fortunate to be attorney general for this country for 14 years — the longest serving attorney general — and when it is suggested that a person who was attorney general is trying to withhold rights from the people, it hurts, really hurts. All I meant was that the Senate must be allowed to deliberate a little more. Nothing wrong with that," Nicholson said.

He also expressed disappointment that the Senate had not allowed more room for Professor Hubert Devonish, who had proposed that the Constitution should guarantee freedom from discrimination on the ground of language, to make his case.

Nicholson, who said the Senate had not kept its promise to Devonish and his group to allow them to present the work which they were asked to do, said a small committee of the Senate should meet with Devonish and explain that it was too late for the proposed amendment at this point but encouraged him to continue his work to help Jamaicans understand the Charter. Devonish had presented a paper containing his proposal to a Joint Select Committee of Parliament, which had been deliberating the amendment to the Constitution.

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Nicholson doubts Ja will resume capital punishment