Dear Editor,

This is an open letter to the prime minister.

I feel compelled to write to you openly concerning the commission of enquiry that you recently established. You will agree that the matters to be inquired into include adherence to the rule of law, the role of government, threats to the integrity of Parliament and the separation of party and government – issues which are fundamental to the proper practice of good governance in our country.

I wish to restate our utter dismay that you proceeded, unilaterally, to settle the membership and the terms of reference for the commission in the face of understandings arrived at in November 2004, between two former prime ministers, an agreement of which you were apprised in the House of Representatives, and the assurance given by you in the House, a matter of one week before, that consultations would be held with the Opposition.

Even in the absence of such a scenario, the weightiness of the history-making issues that are to be inquired into, the widespread calls for the establishment of an independent commission and the far-reaching interest that has been displayed by so many sectors of the society must certainly have impelled a prime minister who is wedded to the cause of inclusiveness and transparency to conduct a consultation exercise beyond the ordinary. And more so, since your own conduct and actions constitute the axis around which the enquiry will inevitably spin.

Already, the ill-advised process that you chose to adopt has served to cast a giant shadow over the commission even before any announcement as to when it will begin, and where it will conduct its proceedings. I am forced to suggest that you immediately advise the country whether the matters outlined on the front page of the Herald newspaper on Sunday last are true.

You will appreciate, of course, that failure to bring clarity to those matters will undoubtedly leave the citizens of Jamaica in the severest quandary as to the reasons why you adopted the course that you did, without the merest pretence at consultation, in the choice of the membership of the commission. That would spell doom for anything that this commission attempts to do.

Portia Simpson Miller

Leader of the Opposition

PNP Headquarters

Old Hope Road

Kingston 6