IT is obvious from the treatment being given to the controversial amendments to the Maintenance Act in the Senate, that the government is prepared to accept anything other than a referral to a joint select committee.

This is unfortunate because, as Senator Dorothy Lightbourne pointed out, a joint select committee would get advice from experts like marriage officers, guidance counsellors and social workers to make the bill a better instrument.

Senator Lightbourne, the Opposition spokesperson on legal affairs, said she wanted to guard against there being so much confusion that the bill doesn’t work, and doesn’t achieve its objectives.

But Attorney General and Minister of Justice Senator AJ Nicholson insists that the bill must be passed within weeks.

He fears that reference to a joint selecat committee could result in a delay, suggesting that the process could be lengthened by two years.

Last Friday, Nicholson blamed the media, primarily, for trying to get the bill sent to a joint select committee. He said that the proposal for the JSC emanated from a newspaper and was jumped on by the opposition.

Nicholson informed the Senate Friday that the wait has already been 30 years and, while he was willing to allow a couple of weeks more to entertain additional inputs, he would not entertain the JSC with the possibility of lengthening the process.

Nicholson: We have waited 30 years, haven’t we. A couple of weeks longer wouldn’t hurt.

Johnson: Why not wait on the joint select committee then?

Nicholson: You know that once the thing goes to joint select committee, it is at least two years.

Don’t bother with that. I think it has been a good debate. The pity is that because of the dust floating about. the real core of the debate was not carried. We need to close ranks on certain things in this country and we as leaders have to set that example. I think that as far as those kinds of situations are concerned I think it is time that we draw brakes. We must start to lead in a certain way, and we must pledge to do it and do it.

When Senator Anthony Johnson, Leader of Opposition Business, asked what mechanism was being proposed to get the views of the public, Nicholson responded: “You still on the joint select committee business?”

The attorney general then said he would be sending copies of the proposed amendments to all the stakeholders such as the churches, the bar association and women’s groups, and that the distribution should be completed within two weeks.

balfordh@jamaicaobserver.com