Response to Laurie Ventour's letter of the day of Sunday, January 20, 2008

Laurie (L.L.) Ventour had a letter in the Sunday Gleaner of January 20, 2008, in which he blamed the PSC for the debacle involving Stephen Vasciannie. I had sent a response to the Gleaner which so far has not been published. I set it out below for your information.




January 21, 2008

Dear Editor,

I write in response to L.L. Ventour's letter of the day which appeared in the Sunday Gleaner of January 20, 2008.

Mr. Ventour blames the Public Service Commission for the imbroglio surrounding its selection of Prof. Stephen Vasciannie as Solicitor General. According to Mr. Ventour, there were "more than four 'strikes' against the then PSC, including breach of the spirit of convention - to offer their resignation en masse on the change of an administration and, in the absence of an appeal against the judgment, the possibility of a charge of contempt of court for their apparent refusal to reinstate an employee, but purporting to transfer him to another post, in what may be seen as clear defiance." According to Mr. Ventour, "No PSC should - nor could - continue in office with such baggage and controversy on its performance" because "It quickly leads to a perceived loss of moral integrity, authority and credibility".

Mr. Ventour's blame, in my view, is entirely misplaced. Firstly, there is no convention of resignations by Service Commissions upon a change of administration. This applies only to statutory bodies. In any event, given the constitutional design of Service Commissions, en bloc resignations would be repugnant to the notion that these bodies are supposed to be independent of political influence. If the political directorate is allowed to reconstitute the Service Commissions at will, then clearly there is no point to having these bodies at all, as they would simply be treated or perceived as rubber stamps for political decisions. If indeed a convention of resignations exists, why then didn’t the members of the Police Service Commission and the Judicial Service Commission resign after the new government took office in September 2007?

Contrary to prevailing public opinion, the PSC was never in contempt of an order of the Supreme Court. The judgment of Mr. Justice Jones quashed the order of the PSC to retire Lackston Robinson from the public service in the public interest. Many laypersons do not understand that the nature of the proceedings before Mr. Justice Jones was judicial review. What this means is that the court was concerned only with the legality of the PSC's decision, which it found to be unlawful. The judge did not expressly order the reinstatement of Mr. Robinson in the public service (or the Attorney General's Chambers in particular) because this would be tantamount to substituting his judgment for that of the PSC. Following the judgment, it was open to the PSC to repeat the process of retiring Mr. Robinson in the public interest, provided that it followed the legally prescribed steps to do so. It was also within the constitutional discretion of the PSC to reassign Mr. Robinson to another post in the public service, which indeed, it attempted to do. It should be emphasized that Mr. Robinson was unlawfully retired from the public service, and not the AG's Chambers, per se. It is therefore quite unfair to accuse the PSC of contempt of court or defiance, for doing precisely what they are lawfully authorized to do.

With due respect to Mr. Ventour, the blame for this imbroglio is attributable entirely to the actions of the Prime Minister. Under Jamaica's constitution, the PSC has the exclusive authority over the selection of the Solicitor General. The Prime Minister chose to disregard the constitutional autonomy of the PSC, later firing the PSC members when they failed to alter their recommendation to suit his political preferences. It is palpably clear that the PSC members would not have been dismissed had they acceded to the PM's wishes.

Finally, I note that Mr. Ventour considered Prof. Vasciannie's 'dead cat' comment in his column to be "intemperate", and that history has ultimately "absolved Mr. Golding in this regard". Mr. Ventour's view betrays a misapprehension of the context in which this metaphor was used. At the time of Prof. Vasciannie's column (September 2002), general elections were due in October 2002. The 'dead cat' metaphor was applied to explain the effect of Bruce Golding's return to the JLP on the PNP's chances of returning to power. In simple language, Prof. Vasciannie was saying that Bruce Golding's return would cause some momentary concern on the part of the PNP, but would not ultimately hurt its chances of returning to power in the October 2002 elections. Given the outcome of the 2002 general elections, I do believe that history has absolved Prof. Vasciannie in this respect.



Yours truly,


O. Hilaire Sobers

Washington, DC

ohilaire@yahoo.com