The Opposition Folks’s Nationwide Occasion (PNP) has adopted via on its risk to take authorized motion to stop the Authorities from pushing forward with making Portmore Jamaica’s fifteenth parish.
Opposition Chief Mark Golding disclosed on Tuesday that the PNP has filed a go well with within the Constitutional Court docket to strike down the laws granting parish standing to Portmore, probably the most populous residential group within the English-speaking Caribbean.
He made the disclosure throughout his contribution to the 2025/26 Funds Debate within the Home of Representatives.
The invoice to make Portmore a parish has been permitted by each homes of Parliament however can’t be enacted till it receives the Governor Common’s assent and is gazzetted.
Golding has urged Prime Minister Andrew Holness to “be certain that, as a part of his legacy to Jamaica, this ill-conceived laws shouldn’t be introduced into impact”.
“We regard the pursuit of this laws as a harmful affront to our democracy which have to be vigorously resisted by all lawful means at our disposal,” he added.
Golding famous that the present preparations with respect to the governance of Portmore emerged out of a extremely consultative and democratic course of, led by the individuals of Portmore themselves.
“We really feel strongly that the individuals of Portmore have to be those to determine whether or not they wish to hand over their standing as a metropolis municipality. In spite of everything, it enjoys some distinctive participatory governance improvements, akin to a directly-elected mayor and the inclusion of group stakeholders in committees of their council,” Golding famous.
“A basic change like that shouldn’t be foisted onto them by the federal government of the day; and it should not be used as a backhanded system to regulate electoral boundaries to safe occasion political benefit. The method being taken by this authorities to the institution of Portmore as a parish is a harmful incursion into long-settled processes for re-establishing electoral boundaries,” Golding argued.
He added that “the gerrymandering motives behind this initiative had been publicly expressed by a former member of the Cupboard of this authorities, and haven’t been refuted. We argued strenuously after which voted in opposition to the laws, primarily as a result of the legislated boundaries for the brand new parish will necessitate the realignment of a number of constituency and divisional electoral boundaries, with out the settled processes led by the Electoral Fee of Jamaica (ECJ) having been engaged and in violation of the necessities of the Structure,” mentioned the Opposition chief.
He additionally identified that “profound considerations with this method have additionally been raised by the current and a former Chairman of the ECJ, and by a former Director of Elections, who’ve made it clear that, if the implementation of the laws shouldn’t be halted it would end in a constitutional disaster”.
Golding instructed the Parliament that the Chairman of the PNP has written to the Minister with duty for native authorities, “in whose title the Invoice was tabled and who piloted the laws via this Home, to hunt sure assurances on this regard, however none has been forthcoming”.
He identified that since 1980 Jamaica moved to ascertain an electoral system wherein essential selections are vested within the ECJ with bipartisan illustration, and the conference is that the choices which end result from the processes adopted by the ECJ are applied with bipartisan help.
“This institutional innovation has contributed significantly to the elimination of political violence in our nation. It is vitally unhappy to see the federal government taking place a path that can undermine this transformational nationwide achievement,” he mentioned.
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