Dear Editor,

Finally the teacher has allowed Jamaica’s brightest students to sit at the front of the class.

Whatever the pros and cons of the many other issues involved in the current constitutional reform process, the members of the reform committee have finally put the lid on idle talk among our legal and political copycat, chattering class about “impeachment”, “recall”, and US-style presidential/congressional governance. Congrats are in order.

Reform process leader Marlene Malahoo Forte has pointed out the obvious: Impeachment is inherently a political trial which has failed in the US to remove a single president from office. Even worse, as was seen in the two most recent attempts to impeach Donald Trump, a former US president, impeachment can be so abused that an attempt was even made to impeach a president who had already been voted out of office.

There are many things Jamaicans need to fix for which examples of what works elsewhere can be adopted, but copying a deeply flawed, dysfunctional US system of governance — much to the chagrin of one prominent columnist in another daily newspaper — is not one of them. The US presidential/congressional system in which Cabinet ministers are not elected by voters has produced results varying from gridlock (no immigration reform legislation) to rioting on the most recent transfer of the keys to the White House.

Jamaica’s system of governance has proven far superior, providing when required swift executive, legislative action; peaceful transfer of power; and the right of voters to reject or accept Members of Parliament or prime ministers as often as they choose.

Many of the perceived weaknesses in our system are often related to the quality of the individuals offering themselves for office, not the system itself. No amount of constitutional reform or change in ‘ism’ can fix that.

Errol W A Townshend

Ontario, Canada

ewat@rogers.com