CORAL SPRING, Trelawny — Former chairman of the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) Errol Miller has slammed the Government’s decision to have members of the ECJ take on the duties of the political ombudsman.

“This is by far the worst legislation affecting electoral laws passed by the Jamaican Parliament since becoming a nation in 1962. It has no equal!” said Miller.

He was speaking Wednesday evening during the second day of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association’s annual conference. Miller is a former JTA president. He apologised for raising the issue, which is not directly related to JTA business, during the forum but explained that he had to speak out.

“For me, personally, silence is not an option. Here is why. Subsuming the functions of the political ombudsman into the electoral commission and making each commissioner a political ombudsman or ombudswoman, fundamentally alters the commission and brings every commissioner into direct engagement with the minutiae of partisan politics,” Miller argued.

“Should a political event occur, especially before nomination day and up to election day, selected commissioners would be embroiled — I’m not going to call it conflict of interest, but conflict of office — no less than if a Cabinet minister is found to be involved in open violence and social disturbance. The two things by law are not supposed to happen,” he added.

The ECJ, which is the independent statutory agency of the Government of Jamaica responsible for organising, conducting and supervising elections, by-elections and referendums, officially took over the functions of the Office of Political Ombudsman (OPO) ahead of the February 26 local government election.

On February 6, the Andrew Holness-led Administration used its majority in the House of Representatives to pass the Political Ombudsman (Amendment) Act, 2024. The decision came against strong objections from Opposition members and a warning a week earlier from former Government Minister Karl Samuda.

Delivering the JTA 60th Anniversary Lecture at the Ocean Spring Hotel in Trelawny Wednesday night, Miller said the legislation should be revoked.

“I pray and I hope that good sense will prevail and both the Government and the Opposition will go back to Parliament and rescind, repent and make the local government election of February 2024, the only election that is conducted on this foolishness,” he appealed.

He argued that the passing of the Act was a glaring contravention of the convention agreed to by both the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the People’s National Party (PNP) in 1979, which underscores “that the party that holds the majority will not use its majority to pass into law any legislation affecting an electoral matter by using that majority to do so”.

While noting that the Opposition PNP had objected to the legislation being passed, Miller said their concerns had not been framed within the context of a breach of the 1979 convention.

“Let us give the Opposition its fair share. Some of their members objected. But listen to this. Neither of them raised the point that they were breaking the convention. In other words, they were opposing it not for the principal reason that it should be opposed,” he pointed out.

He reflected that, back in 2015, when the PNP which was in power signalled that they were going to break with convention and officially informed the EOJ of their intention, there was outcry from a number of quarters, including the Opposition JLP.

“The Honourable Dorothy Pine McCarthy [retired chairman of EOJ], writing on behalf of the commission, replied to the Leader of the House that the Electoral Commission does not take instruction from the Cabinet. It would only act if approved by the Parliament. When that became public, as you can imagine, there was a big public outcry by Opposition, civil society organisations, all kinds of people came out and objected. So by the time it came to the House, the Leader of Government Business announced that the Government was proceeding with the matter as recommended unanimously by the Electoral Commission,” Miller recounted.

“This time, both of them have kept silent,” he chided.

“In passing this absurd, unworkable, impractical, unprecedented change, both the Government and the Opposition participated in breaking the convention upon which all of Jamaica’s progress since independence, since 1979, has been based. You say what is that? What is that convention? Remember Parliament is supreme, you cannot order Parliament to do anything. [It] is the supreme body,” Miller explained.

“I’m saying that because of the length of service of many in the Senate and in the House who never raised this point, they broke the convention without telling the people of Jamaica that they were doing so,” he added.

He argued that in the past the political ombudsman was ignored by some politicians who violated the code of conduct with impunity. He cautioned that exposing the ECJ to similarly being ignored “is grossly unwise”.

“Adjudicating complaints of intemperate speech, silly public behaviour, disputes about colour, posters, paraphernalia and graffiti in a period of heightened political partisan and bravado and emotions in election campaigning and without any sanctions to apply to deviance is likely to diminish respect for both the Electoral Commission and its commissioners,” Miller asserted.