KINGSTON, Jamaica – Constitutional Reform Committee (CRC) spokesperson, Dr Nadeen Spence, has accused civil society bodies of trying to bully members of the committee into accepting their recommendations for constitutional reform.

Dr Spence made the accusation Friday morning, in response to questions from the hosts of Nationwide News Network’s questions about the decision by National Integrity Action (NIA) to refuse an invitation to make submissions, until their proposals related to the reform process are accepted.

“I feel like we are being bullied, yeah man. It is a heavy bullying going on. As a member of the committee I feel bullied, where every time the committee is asked to respond to a sworn issue, and the committee responds by making sure that we are listening to the people and giving them what is needed, at some time there is always a kind of push-back that says OK, we are not satisfied with this to do this: We are not satisfied with that to do this. So I feel as if at this point the committee is being bullied,” she explained.

“I question the motives of these people who continue to find (issues). I personally, as a civil society person, reach out to all these organisations – the NIA, the Advocates Network and Jamaicans For Justice (JFJ,” she stated.

“So, I am not quite sure what their issue is and I suspect that nothing well do will satisfy them, even if we acquiesce to every demand that they make, after that there will be other issues that they will have,” she added.

Among the NIA’s requests from the CRC are: for the budget of the reform process to be made public; to have committee meetings streamed live; as well as the launch of a wide-scale public education campaign.

Spence, who chairs the CRC’s public education sub-committee, however, reacted that although there have been delays, the activities of the CRC have been ongoing. She accused the NIA, formerly headed by Dr Trevor Munroe, of focusing on finding faults with the committee’s performance, rather than collaborating with the committee in finding solutions to the problems.

Dr Spence was one of two committee members who assured a Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange press briefing in April this year -the other was retired judge Hugh Small- that the committee is building on the work already done on the matter of republicanism many years ago and on which there was broad agreement, therefore, there is no need to start the process from scratch.

“I don’t think we have to reinvent the wheel. And I think if we were going to try and reinvent the wheel and go back over and ignore all of the work that has been done in the last 60 years, we would not be able to achieve the kind of progress that is now required and is now forced upon us, because we have been so slow in the past…” Small noted.

However, Dr Trevor Munroe, the founding director of National Integrity Action (NIA), is recommending that Jamaica’s constitution reform committee should spend at least one more year compiling educational material to properly inform the nation on all the factors involved in turning Jamaica into a republic.

-Balford Henry