Commentary

What's the hang-up?

MY FRIEND P was so annoyed yesterday morning, and he said 'C, we need to recast your column and talk about those people in the house who get paid to manage the affairs, [particularly on policy] of the country.'

What does P want me to talk about? ­ Government backbencher Charles Learmond's call for a referendum on the death penalty. Now we asked: in the context of no one being hanged in Jamaica since 1988 ­ 16 years ­ how does this referendum become relevant?

What is the reality?: We have on our books the death penalty ­ meaning that if the courts define that you are guilty of murder and should be sentenced to death then you should be hanged. What is so difficult about this is beyond us all really.

Is there a genuine interest in hanging anyone? We think not. Because if there was, then there would not be scores of people sitting on death row as we write.

Just a flashback. P and I were glossy-eyed and bedazzled as recent Common Entrance Examination 'fortunates', four months into the uncertain world of high school, when in the Jamaican House of Parliament an amazing event was taking place.

It was a conscience vote in the House on the issue of the retention or the abolition of the death penalty which created two sides, the hawks and the doves. The hawks said hang 'em high, the doves said let them live.

[One day we will discuss the sadness of the concept of a conscience vote in the House ­ meaning all the time they do what, blindly vote on whatever the party says they should vote on? More power to Portia!]

Doves

But we digress, about the '79 vote, the Doves were Eric Bell, Ralph Brown, Howard Cooke, Dr. D.K. Duncan, Vincent Edwards, Desmond Leakey, Michael Manley, P.J. Patterson, Orville Ramtallie, Hugh Small, Anthony Spaulding, Jack Stephenson (12 Government members), and Dr. Neville Gallimore, Dr. Mavis Gilmour, Len Kirby, Neville Lewis, E. K. Powell, Alva Ross, Douglas Vaz (seven Opposition members).

And then there was a vote that suspended the hanging and has landed us right where we are right now. Who voted for the suspension? Carl Rattray, Paul Johnson. Sefton Johnson (all Government members); Basil Buck, Pearnel Charles, Bruce Golding, Ossie Harding, Dr. Ronald Irvine, Princess Lawes, Winston Spaulding (all JLP opposition members)

P and I think that it is of interest that PJ Patterson, our reigning four-term PM, was one of the people who said don't hang 'em back in 1979. If you put that vote in the context of now ­ and the non-application of our laws being blamed on a lack of political will - well, it all makes sense, doesn't it? Who is it that would spearhead that political will? Hmmm, answer that yourselves.

The failure to hang is often blamed on the Privy Council ruling on the Pratt and Morgan case, the needs of the international community and a lot of other convenient excuses. Seriously, there is Trinidad right across the way ­ if they can do it well, what is our hang up?

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