Parliament may be finally coming around to the need to pay more attention to reports from its commissions, which are so critical to the governance process but are usually ignored to the extent that nothing more is heard about them after the excitement generated when they are tabled and covered by the press.

In May 2013, following the tabling of the public defender’s report on the May 2010 Tivoli operation, this column suggested that “there seems to be a thread running through virtually all the commissions which fall under Parliament, including the Office of the Political Ombudsman and the Corruption Prevention Commission.

And, to make matters worse, there is total confusion trying to figure out what are the problems that beset these commissions, because: (1) they fail to table their reports, including annual reports, on time; and (2) they usually underspend their budgets with no explanation.

“How can a commission of Parliament be years behind in getting an independently audited annual report tabled on time, yet it can show that there are millions of dollars in its budget which have not been spent and which it returns to Parliament at the end of the financial year? Something doesn’t seem quite right here,” this column contended.

Now, of all places, the issue of how the reports from commissions of Parliament are handled by Gordon House was one of the main items discussed at Wednesday’s final meeting of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament reviewing the performance of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM).

The discussion was triggered by a request from INDECOM that a special parliamentary committee should be established to receive and consider its reports to Parliament, as well as to enquire into its operations and recommendations. But, it ended with a general call for special committees to deal with reports from all commissions of Parliament.

The commissions of Parliament include the Electoral Commission, the Integrity Commission, the Public Defender, INDECOM, the Corruption Prevention Commission, the Political Ombudsman, the Office of the Contractor General (OCG), and the Office of the Children’s Advocate (OCA).

The importance of these commissions, which all answer to Parliament, is the basis on which there is suggestion that special attention should be paid to their reports.

Former Speaker of the House Delroy Chuck reminded the meeting on Wednesday that a committee had been set up, under the previous administration, to examine all parliamentary commissions’ reports, including those from INDECOM.

In fact, a committee was established in 2009, during Chuck’s tenure as speaker, to clarify issues pertaining to the stewardship of these commissions. That decision arose out of concerns raised by then Children’s Advocate Mary Clarke that Parliament was not adequately addressing issues affecting her office, particularly where recommendations are made.

“Every year, commissions of Parliament send annual reports. Some of these are bulky, very important, but very few people read them, which is the problem. I am aware that there are many recommendations that need responses,” Chuck responded then. “We have taken a decision in Parliament, having spoken to the deputy speaker and the clerk of Parliament, that at least once per year these commissions… will appear before a committee of Parliament.”

Chuck also explained that the move would give the commissions an opportunity to highlight aspects of their reports, express the concerns of their office, and communicate their hopes or needs for the following year. He said that it would also allow them to respond to concerns that the public may express about the functions of their offices.

At the time, what was known as a Reports Committee, headed by the then Deputy Speaker of the House, Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert, which reviewed annual reports tabled by Government bodies and agencies, was given the added responsibility to deal with reports from the commissions.

However, Gordon House’s Legislative Counsel Camika Facey explained Wednesday that the committee is no longer operating.

“I don’t think that it is actually within the current Standing Orders. I believe it is a standing committee that would be carried over from each session of Parliament. But it is up to the parliamentary members themselves to put forward the view that the committee needs to meet,” Facey told the INDECOM committee meeting.

“That’s unsatisfactory. I think it needs to be imbedded in the Standing Orders,” Minister of Justice Senator Mark Golding, who chairs the INDECOM committee, reacted.

“We have so many of these parliamentary commissions now, I am not sure that a single committee would be effective in providing the commissions with the kind of support and action that they need in response to the matters that they report on,” Senator Golding commented.

“So, for example, the Corruption Prevention Commission has repeated over and over various things that it wanted to have fixed, and nothing was done about it. Well, it so happens that, in the new Integrity Commission Bill that’s tabled and which there is a joint select committee for, a number of those things are addressed in that Bill, but that’s just one instance,” he explained.

“I think that the idea of a single committee that deals with all of these parliamentary commissions and their reports might not really do justice to those commissions, and we may think about the need to have ad hoc parliamentary committees that are established. Once a report from any commission is tabled, an ad hoc committee (would be) established to review that report and act on it, and I think that then you would get more action,” he suggested.

Government Senator Lambert Brown suggested that the matter should be left to the parliamentary leaders — the speaker and the deputy speaker of the House, the president and deputy president of the Senate, the leaders of Government and Opposition business in both Houses.

But Golding insisted that a provision could be inserted into the Standing Orders around the proposal, and this could be tabled in the form of a Bill.

“It can amend the Standing Orders and insert a provision saying that, for example, when a report is delivered to Parliament by any commission of Parliament the clerk should notify the speaker of the House who shall cause a committee of both Houses to be appointed to review the report and make recommendations,” Golding said.

Parliament remembers Sir Howard Cooke on Wednesday

A joint sitting of both the Senate and the House of Representatives on Wednesday morning at 10:00 to pay tribute to the former Governor General and parliamentarian Sir Howard Cooke will highlight this week’s schedule of meetings at Gordon House.

Sir Howard entered politics in 1938 as one of the founding members of the People’s National Party (PNP). In 1958 he was elected to the West Indies Federal Parliament as the representative of St James.

He entered the Jamaican Parliament in 1962 and served as senator until 1967. He served as a member of the House of Representatives between 1967 and 1980, and was a member of the Cabinet between 1972 and 1980. As minister, he held, at different times, the portfolios of pension and social security; education; and labour and public service.

He was president of the Senate from 1989 to 1991 and served on the executive of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

Sir Howard died on July 11. He was 98.