AMIDST the furore over salary increases granted to members of the judiciary and the political directorate, prominent attorney-at-law Alexander Shaw says Jamaica is suffering from the effects of having normalised low pay in the public sector.

According to Shaw, this has been established to the point where increases consistent with the line of work are seen as an affront to good conscience and exploitative.

“I am certain that now there are lawyers from the private bar who are making far more than our judges. If you are charged for murder and an attorney is to represent you, you are looking at anywhere between $1.5 million and $2 million depending on the magnitude of the case, meaning how long you have to stay before the court,” said Shaw who specialises in criminal litigation and is an adjunct lecturer in the Faculty of Law at The University of the West Indies, Mona campus.

“We are dealing with the leadership of our political directorate, those who are in charge of making laws and those who are in charge of interpreting laws, so when you live in a meritocratic society you have to bear in mind that your salary is going to be based on how important one thinks your job is,” Shaw told the Jamaica Observer as he argued that the backlash now being experienced by the political directorate over the increase is due to the fact that these salaries have not been adjusted incrementally.

“Our leader — and leaders in the sense of the chief justice, the prime minister, ministers — you have to be properly compensated. I have no objections; I just think because they have waited so long to adjust the scales and [are] now trying [to] get back in line, trying to fix what has not been addressed for quite some time, that is the reason [for the uproar],” added Shaw.

He said with the adjustments to judges’ salaries, attorneys from the private bar will now be more minded to accept calls to sit on the bench.

“For years lawyers would tell you that they are not going on the bench because if they do, they will become paupers. How? Law is a very expensive profession [so] when you are restricted to $4 or $5 million [per year] how are you going to function? So there are persons who, over the years, have avoided going on the bench — and it’s because of the compensation,” Shaw said.

The first set of increases announced by Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke earlier this month saw Jamaica’s chief justice’s salary jumping to $28.8 million per annum, inclusive of all allowances except for security and housing.

In the second raft of increases, which ruffled feathers, the country’s political directorate saw increases in salaries of up to 200 per cent in some cases.

The increases to parliamentarians will cost the country some $1.7 billion.

In noting arguments that teachers, nurses and police officers should have benefited from better salary increases as against the judges and politicians, Shaw said “the leadership of the police, the teachers, over time they have seen significant increases in their salaries.

“There are principals who have moved from $6.5 million to $13 million now. The leadership levels in the teaching profession, the salary scales of principals in the larger tertiary institutions have moved from $4.3 million to $4.99 million as at April 2021, and from $10.4 million to $13.3 million as at April 2023…. So what you find is that those at the base may not see [a] significant increase but those at the helm of their profession are going to see significant increases — and that is in accordance with what a meritocratic society is based on,” argued Shaw.

He added: “Those who are leading will always get more. The secretary and the boss won’t get the same pay; it is just an unspoken truth we have to face.”

He argued that ensuring individuals at the helm are well paid will minimise corruption.

“Part of this whole idea of a culture of corruption has permeated politics because you entrust these persons with great responsibilities, superior power to make decisions, but yet still the compensation is not commensurate and so many of them find ways to profit from their role. That is why you want to pay the banker, you want to pay the judge, so that in the event somebody tries to bribe them they will say no,” Shaw said.

“You have persons who are guided by their integrity and it will tell them not to do it but you should also have other discouraging factors. The living expenses of a politician — security and otherwise — these are high-expense offices so what the regular man can do, they can’t. And Jamaicans might say no but just like how we can’t have our judges in the streets doing certain things because of their role, it’s the same with the politicians,” he argued.

In the meantime political commentator Christopher McCurdy, in a statement to the Observer, said parliamentarians are often required to work long hours, attend numerous meetings, and engage in extensive research while sacrificing quality family life to ensure that they make informed decisions.

He further argued that paying parliamentarians well ensures that they can be held accountable and insulated from from the likelihood of engaging in corruption.