FOUNDING director of corruption regulator National Integrity Action (NIA) Professor Emeritus Trevor Munroe says the entity is adopting a wait-and-see response to the howls of discontent in certain quarters over the appointment of Juliet Holness as Speaker of the House of Representatives, given that the Parliament has oversight for the executive of which her husband, Prime Minister Andrew Holness, is head.

Holness was elevated from her post as deputy speaker of the House on September 26, to replace Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert who officially resigned on September 21.

The constitution explicitly provides for parliament to exercise oversight of the executive. It states that the executive, comprised of the prime minister, ministers and the Cabinet is the principal instrument of policy responsible for the general direction and control of the Government of Jamaica. The prime minister, ministers and the Cabinet as a whole are collectively responsible to the Parliament. A main function of the Parliament — on behalf of the people – is to hold the Cabinet, the prime minister and ministers to account.

Wednesday, Munroe in responding to concerns raised by Leader of Government Business in the Senate Peter Bunting about Holness’s appointment said, “We prefer to say that the jury is out, but the jury is not going to be out for a long time. In very short order the matter will be tested in terms of the Speaker’s response and management of the Parliament.”

“The new Speaker will have to demonstrate that the concerns and disquiet that many of the public feel, or that they are. We will encourage her to live up to the Standing Orders of the Parliament and to ensure that the levels of propriety and integrity that are expected which often have not been observed this time will be. We intend to encourage that and to criticise when it is not apparent in her conduct,” he stated.

Bunting, who was present at the unveiling of findings by the corruption watchdog concerning its recently conducted Parliamentary Oversight Project at Mona in St Andrew on Wednesday, had declared that he disagreed with one of the NIA’s conclusions where it stated that parliamentary oversight is not a priority of the Government.

“I disagree; it is a priority of the Government in the sense that suppressing or eliminating parliamentary oversight is a priority of the Government. And I say that because any government where the spouse of the head of the executive is appointed to become the head of the legislature as well, cannot intend impartial oversight of the executive,” Bunting said. He further chided the Government for discontinuing the practice of allowing Opposition members to chair sessional select committees, replacing it on the basis that they weren’t effective.

“Even when they were chaired by Opposition, members the Government often use its majority to frustrate the agenda of those chairing and to prevent or put obstacles in the way. So I would say it is a priority, but the priority is to suffocate, eliminate or otherwise suppress that oversight,” Bunting argued.

On Wednesday, chief executive officer of the Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal (JAMP) Jeanette Calder, in responding to Bunting, said time will tell whether those concerns are justified.

“Mrs Holness actually chairs a number of committees of the Parliament. I have watched how she has handled herself. I haven’t heard much complaint; I haven’t heard any significant complaints about partiality. As a matter of fact, I have been impressed with the accountability mechanisms that she is attempting to bring to some of those other committees and if she transfers that to the House we are looking at improvement,” Calder said.

“I am going to agree with Prof [Munroe] that since there is no law against it, what Mrs Holness has to do is perform in a way that doesn’t justify the concerns of Senator Bunting, and so for me it’s always going to be performance above everything. My focus is her performance; I do respect the question of public perception… I do harbour some concerns for the extent to which the public of Jamaica believes that there is going to be some possibility of the Speaker of the House acting in an untoward manner, and so I want to watch carefully to see how we deal with that. But if Mrs Holness is performing that is what we request of her,” she added.

The NIA in the assessment conducted under the SANCUS (Strengthening Accountability Networks Among Civil Society) Project — an European Union (EU)-funded initiative supported by Transparency International – concluded, among other things, that the oversight of the Parliament “is significantly debilitated and in urgent need of improvement”.

According to Munroe, while the legal and constitutional framework of Jamaica’s Parliament makes standard provisions for oversight of the executive, “In practice, there was great variation in the utilisation, and effectiveness of parliamentary oversight of Jamaica’s executive”.