GOVERNMENT senators yesterday shot down a proposal by the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) to send the controversial Maintenance Bill to a Joint Select Committee (JSC), but accepted the need for wider participation in the discussions.

Leader of Opposition Business Anthony Johnson moved a motion seeking to have the bill sent to a JSC. He said that while most of the members of the Senate are ‘properly married’, they needed to hear from the persons most affected, including those enjoined in informal arrangements which characterise our country.

“If there is one issue in which the public ought to be substantially involved, it is the matter of formal and informal intimate family relationships. They are matters of fundamental importance, and we would really like to hear what the people have to say,” Senator Johnson insisted.

But, Leader of Government Business, Senator Burchell Whiteman pointed out that the bill had been tabled before the recent summer break, and that notice had been given to debate it on the resumption.

“It is a little unfortunate that the Opposition team did not choose, either sometime between July and the early part of September, or between the time when the Bill was put on notice for second reading, to make the suggestion which is now being made,” Senator Whiteman said.

“We understand the significance of this bill and we believe that a debate would elucidate and illuminate many of the issues for the public, if properly reported, without sensation, without embellishment and without any prophecy as to what is to happen,” he added.

He said, however, that if the Opposition intended to pursue a motion for it to be sent to a select committee, the government would not support the proposal.

Despite the pleas of Senator Dorothy Lightbourne, the Opposition’s spokesperson on legal affairs, and Senator Prudence Kidd-Deans, the Opposition’s motion was defeated by the government majority and the debate proceeded with presentations from both government member, Senator Keste Miller, and Senator Lightbourne.

Senator Whiteman said the Opposition senators should consider the fact that debating the bill would not foreclose on options for public participation. He said that the debate would elucidate the matter and provide detailed consideration of the very matters that concerned Senator Johnson.

He said that there was no compulsion to complete the debate yesterday, and no obligation to rush the House of Representatives into debating the bill on Tuesday and coming to a conclusion, so there would be opportunity for the public to understand and to air their views.

“I think that it is important that we don’t take another few years to conclude as we did with the Rights of Spouses Act,” Senator Whiteman added.

The Maintenance Bill is seeking to repeal the principal Act, as well as the Affiliation Act, to provide for, among other things: the maintenance of spouses by each other; maintenance of unmarried children by their parents; maintenance of grandchildren by their grandparents; and the maintenance of parents and grandparents by their adult children and grandchildren.

The bill is gender neutral and fault is not considered a determining factor in withholding maintenance. The definition of spouse includes unmarried persons who have cohabited for five years or more.

It is being piloted by Attorney General A J Nicholson who opened the debate on September 23.