MINISTER of Legal and Constitutional Affairs Marlene Malahoo Forte has suggested that Opposition Leader Mark Golding is being less than truthful and insincere as it relates to the constitutional reform process.

Malahoo Forte made the charge on Wednesday during an appearance at the weekly post-Cabinet media briefing at Jamaica House.

“I believe that Jamaicans are desperate to see the exercise of leadership that is not a stranger to the truth. The exercise of leadership that will part company with the things that have gone wrong in the past, sensationalising issues, creating fear in the minds of people, making false links and just simply being inaccurate,” said Malahoo Forte.

“It’s not the kind of leadership that is going to cut it [going] forward,” she added.

Malahoo Forte also used the occasion to answer the four questions posed by Golding to Prime Minister Andrew Holness at the first meeting of the joint select committee (JSC) of the Parliament that is examining the Constitutional Amendment Bill.

Golding has indicated that the answers to the questions would determine the future participation of the People’s National Party (PNP) in those meetings.

The PNP has stayed away from meetings of the committee since Golding poised the questions and was again missing on Wednesday afternoon despite Malahoo Forte’s mid-morning responses.

The Andrew Holness-led Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government has indicated that it wants the constitutional reform done in phases with the removal of the British Monarchy being the first step.

But the PNP is adamant that first phase of the process should include moving away from the London-based Privy Council and making the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), Jamaica’s final appellate court.

The PNP has argued that there is no rationale behind ditching King Charles as the country’s head of State while retaining the Privy Council.

But Malahoo Forte told the post-Cabinet media briefing that, “The matter of the final court will come forward,” and suggested that politics was at play in the PNP’s position.

“We do not see which court as a matter of a Jamaica Labour Party court, we see that it will have to be determined in the context of which court will seek the interests of Jamaicans,” said Malahoo Forte.

She appeared resigned to the fact that the reform process is doomed without the participation of the Opposition.

“I get the sense that no matter what answers are provided, the parliamentary Opposition would be separating from the process anyway,” she told the post-Cabinet briefing.

And while appearing to want to save the process, the minister was highly critical of the Opposition leader.

She said it would have been more appropriate for Golding to have requested a meeting with the prime minster where his questions could have been raised.

“But it is clear that his intention was for the matters to be placed squarely in the public domain and accordingly, the responses are coming in the public domain,” declared Malahoo Forte.

On the question of why the Government has not reintroduced bills in the Parliament in relation to the CCJ becoming Jamaica’s final appellate court, Malahoo Forte was less than clear in her response.

She argued that Golding gave the impression that at no time was he made aware of the Government’s approach to the reform process.

Malahoo Forte pointed out that before the JLP was returned to Government in 2016, then Opposition Leader Holness spoke clearly about the philosophy of the party going into that election.

According to Malahoo Forte, Holness clearly outlined the broad vision of the party with the JLP showing a preference for the establishment of a local final court as the reform process moved forward. She told the media briefing that currently views on this matter are progressing.

“The truth is that now there is no consensus on which final court [is best] for Jamaica, but there are three options for consideration,” she added. Those options are Jamaica having its own final court, the CCJ, or the Privy Council.

Malahoo Forte said the argument about Jamaica making the CCJ its final appellate court is understood with the country already being part of the court, subscribing to its original jurisdiction which deals with Caribbean Community (Caricom) matters under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.

But she argued that it is not true to say Jamaica is paying for the CCJ that it is not using as claimed by Golding.

“I have always said that accuracy matters, truth matters… and there are many things that are verifiable, it’s just that we often do not take the time to look at the records, we are instead content with being told something and if it is told often enough we believe that it can transform into truth when it is a stranger to the truth,” claimed Malahoo Forte.

She also brushed aside Golding’s question in which he suggested that by retaining the UK Privy Council, many Jamaicans were being left behind.

The minister pointed to statistics from the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal which she said indicate that the Jamaican court system was equipped to deal with the matters brought before it even while acknowledging some challenges at the appeal court level.

She underscored that “You do not go to your highest court at first instance”.

“The issues of justice that matter to the people of Jamaica do not begin with the highest court. The impression that unless there is ascension to the appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ at the same time when we’re transitioning from a constitutional monarchy to a republic, the vast majority of Jamaicans would be left behind is patently false,” Malahoo Forte declared.

She insisted that the majority of Jamaicans get justice in the trial courts and in particular in the parish courts.

Malahoo Forte insisted further that there is logic to doing the reform in phases, pointing out that the issue of the final court would be addressed in phase two.

She explained that the constitution is laid out in sections and there is an alteration mechanism that relates to the level of protection that is given to each section.

To change the deeply entrenched provisions require a referendum which has not been undertaken in independent Jamaica.