KINGSTON, Jamaica— Chairman of the Integrity Commission (IC), Seymour Panton, has brushed aside critics who say the commission and its commissioners are filled with malice towards the Government.

“On the question of malice, I have been a lay preacher in the Methodist church for decades. Malice is not in my make-up and it is not in the make-up of the commissioners,” said Panton.

He was speaking Tuesday as members of the IC appeared before the Parliament’s Integrity Commission Oversight Committee (ICOC).

Putting on his ‘preacher hat’, the retired president of the Court of Appeal said “there may be persons who need to repent. And they can join me at church…any Sunday”.

Continuing, Panton said “I don’t know if something is wrong with the water in Parliament why some people, the moment they get into Parliament they say certain things and behave a certain way, I don’t know if that is it”.

He elicited laughter when he reached for a bottle of water he had carried into the meeting, stating that “as a result, I decided that I wasn’t going to take the chance of drinking any water here”.

Then stating that he was serious, Panton said he would be seeking a meeting with Government Senator, Dr Saphire Longmore, a consultant psychiatrist, “to have a word with her because it may well be that she needs to have a word with some members of the House”.

Some government members of the ICOC have stated that the IC should be mandated to certify the statutory declarations of Prime Minister Andrew Holness.

Seemingly responding to those remarks, a forceful Panton said “as it regards some other statements made in this room about giving orders, the commission takes orders from no one other than the court”.

He expressed the hope that the individuals making those statements would desist from doing so.