Corruption Bill stalled

THE Government’s push to pass the Corruption Prevention (Special Prosecutor) Act before the end of this legislative year failed yesterday when Parliamentarians, after agonising for several hours over several clauses, found themselves at an impasse.

In the end, acknowledging that they had reached deadlock, House Leader Andrew Holness said the legislation would be carried over for debate in the new parliamentary year which begins on April 14 this year, once the issues raised were addressed by the government drafters.

Parliamentarians have been poring over the Bill for some three weeks, reaching no further than clause 17 of the 87-clause provision. In January this year, Opposition senators abandoned the Senate sitting after their pleas for one last meeting to carefully examine the clauses of the Act fell on deaf ears. Government senators pushed through the landmark provision on their own.

But after several hours yesterday, it became apparent that the provision, which had come from the Senate with 49 amendments, would not find passage. Parliamentarians tussled over the definition of public official, which they said was too wide in terms of the cross-section of persons who could fall under scrutiny, as well as clauses 11 and 12 of the Bill which address public officials engaging in deals which give an undue advantage to individuals in the private sector.

The better part of the sitting was spent agonising over whether the supervisory powers of the special prosecutor should in fact stretch to the private sector with some MPs arguing that this was unnecessarily “vast and invasive”. There was also discomfort with the requirements by the Bill for several categories of public officials, including ‘unpaid public officials’, to make statutory declarations.

One matter which is yet to be resolved is the reasoning of Government member of parliament Clive Mullings who argued that the Constitution would have to be amended to establish the special prosecutor as a public office.

Section 31 of the Bill purports to establish the special prosecutor via the Public Service Commission (PSC), but according to Mullings it was the Constitution, from which the Public Service Commission derives its authority, that defines the public service.

“…How then does the special prosecutor fit? We have a problem because while the PSC will appoint a director of public prosecutions it is the Constitution which deems that as a public office,” he said.

“What it therefore means is we now would have to establish the special prosecutor as a public office so the Constitution would have to be amended, because the definition of public office and public service is clear in the Constitution and it is on those grounds that the Public Services Commission can appoint,” Mullings said while urging that Parliament take a closer look at the issue.

“If we don’t correct that, we are wasting our time,” he said further.

The Opposition’s Dr Omar Davies also had some concerns about the role of the director of administration and the director of investigation identified in the Bill which, he argued, could be in conflict with the authority of the special prosecutor.

“There is a special prosecutor but they have named subordinates with specific responsibilities. Is it that these two officers could take actions which are outside of the any agreement by the special prosecutor. Couldn’t you be establishing a recipe for confusion in this department where you have specifically named directors?” Davies queried.

Opposition MP Ronald Thwaites added: “In fact, it’s most awkwardly drafted because it does not indicate any tissue of permission or of sanction by the special prosecutor, and bear in mind that the functions of those directors have far-reaching effect on anybody whose hand they touch. We are using extreme measures which have not been sufficiently clarified to reach a laudable end, and we are likely to cause a mischief which we will regret. This thing needs a most careful revision.”

Thwaites also said that there was nothing partisan about the concerns raised but rather a desire to make sure corruption was dealt with to the fullest extent.

“With the greatest of respect, I feel it has to go back for some amount of drafting,” said Opposition member of parliament Dr Morais Guy.

The Bill, which has had a tumultuous journey through a Joint Select Committee, the Senate and now the Lower House, will, if passed, establish the office of the special prosecutor for corruption, and will repeal the 2001 Corruption (Prevention) Act and the 1973 Parliament (Integrity of Members) Act. The Office of the Special Prosecutor will be a department of government with the specific mandate to monitor statutory declarations from public officials and to prosecute those who engage in corrupt conduct.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding, in piloting the provision through the Lower House, had emphasised that his administration wanted to have the statute passed before the end of this legislative year, noting that there was a “particular urgency”.

In 2005, Jamaica signed the United Nations Convention against corruption, and the legislation is one of the requirements under the Convention.

The special prosecutor, who will be appointed by the governor general, will be an attorney-at-law by profession, with experience as a high court judge or a senior deputy director of public prosecutions. While in Opposition, the present Government trumpeted the need for a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute corruption in government.

Source: Jamaica Observer