In Ja­maica’s In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion’s an­nu­al re­port for 2022/2023, chair­man Sey­mour Pan­ton warned “that there is a con­cert­ed at­tack by some par­lia­men­tar­i­ans on the in­sti­tu­tion. It is as if there is a de­sire by them for the in­sti­tu­tion to be dis­man­tled or at least frozen by fear”.

Pan­ton spoke of “the abu­sive, dis­re­spect­ful, li­bel­lous lan­guage used by some par­lia­men­tar­i­ans in launch­ing per­son­al at­tacks un­der the cov­er of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege against per­sons con­nect­ed to the com­mis­sion”.

How­ev­er, he said the com­mis­sion was mere­ly car­ry­ing out its man­date un­der the law.

This sit­u­a­tion erupt­ed when Ja­maica PM An­drew Hol­ness chas­tised Ja­maica’s IC, which im­plied a con­flict of in­ter­est in the award­ing of con­tracts to his close as­so­ciates 16 years ago.

A sim­i­lar sce­nario is now play­ing out lo­cal­ly .T&T’s IC had to pub­lish a re­but­tal of our Prime Min­is­ter’s broad­side against them. Dr Kei­th Row­ley is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed over the award of four state con­tracts to his friend Al­lan Warn­er.

In its me­dia state­ment, the IC stat­ed, “While it is per­haps un­der­stand­able for per­sons in pub­lic life to feel con­cerned or even ir­ri­tat­ed when asked to an­swer ques­tions about the role that they may have played in the mak­ing of cer­tain de­ci­sions, it is ir­re­spon­si­ble to al­low that con­cern or ir­ri­ta­tion to dri­ve them to make ac­cu­sa­tions of col­lu­sion or mis­chief based on noth­ing more than the mere fact that they have been asked to an­swer ques­tions.”

The com­mis­sion added that it “has nev­er act­ed in ca­hoots with any­one in dis­charg­ing its con­sti­tu­tion­al du­ty. It must be un­der­stood that an­swer­ing ques­tions about the role that one may have played in the mak­ing of cer­tain de­ci­sions comes with the ter­ri­to­ry when per­sons en­ter pub­lic life”.

This may seem like a re­cur­ring night­mare for Dr Row­ley, who ac­cused the IC of “de­lib­er­ate­ly at­tempt­ing to tar­nish my rep­u­ta­tion … It is my view that in the most in­com­pre­hen­si­ble of ways, the com­mis­sion is at­tempt­ing to gen­er­ate some­thing here”. He added that the com­mis­sion “clear­ly knows some­thing that no­body else knows” and was await­ing the out­come of “their ex­pe­di­tion”.

Our PM said he is al­so in con­sul­ta­tion with his lawyers.

In Feb­ru­ary, Ja­maica’s PM Hol­ness chas­tised their IC’s im­plied sug­ges­tion of con­flict of in­ter­est in the award­ing of con­tracts to his close as­so­ciates 16 years ago.

Hol­ness said, “I strong­ly dis­agree with some of the find­ings of the re­port and have re­ferred it to my lawyers. I strong­ly re­ject any sug­ges­tion or in­sin­u­a­tion of wrong­do­ing and I will do all in my pow­er to en­sure that the truth is known.”

Dif­fer­ent lead­ers with sim­i­lar crit­i­cisms.

I do not be­lieve that the IC is above crit­i­cism or er­ror.

A le­gal chal­lenge by Dr Row­ley was tes­ti­mo­ny to this.

In Feb­ru­ary 2009, the then IC chair­man John Mar­tin and three mem­bers re­signed af­ter fail­ing to give then min­is­ter Dr Row­ley a full op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard, be­fore send­ing the Lan­date files to the DPP.

Jus­tice Mau­reen Ra­j­nath-Lee stat­ed that the com­mis­sion had act­ed in bad faith and was guilty of mis­fea­sance in pub­lic af­fairs.

Dr Row­ley said then, “It was the re­sult of cer­tain peo­ple, en­trust­ed with pow­er and au­thor­i­ty, who al­low them­selves to be mis­led by per­sons in the po­lit­i­cal are­na who sought to use the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion to in­flu­ence the di­rec­tion of my po­lit­i­cal ca­reer.”

An­oth­er IC chair­man, Ken Gor­don, al­so had to de­fend his ‘se­cret’ meet­ing ‘with the then leader of the op­po­si­tion, Dr Row­ley, when the then PM, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, called for his res­ig­na­tion. Gor­don de­scribed as “ab­surd” the charge “that the meet­ing was part of a po­lit­i­cal con­spir­a­cy”.

In 2015, then deputy chair­man Jus­tice Ven­tour re­signed over the “Email­gate” due to a state­ment is­sued by the com­mis­sion stat­ing that there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to con­tin­ue the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The IC in­ves­ti­gat­ed al­le­ga­tions made by then-Op­po­si­tion leader Dr Row­ley, of in­crim­i­nat­ing emails pur­port­ing to be from key gov­ern­ment min­is­ters.

On Au­gust 13, Guardian Me­dia jour­nal­ist Asha Javeed wrote, “both Prime Min­ster Dr Kei­th Row­ley and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress were hav­ing sep­a­rate is­sues fol­low­ing the in­sti­tu­tion’s de­ci­sion to ter­mi­nate an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Row­ley”.

“Row­ley said the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion lacked in­tegri­ty and its state­ment paved the way for al­le­ga­tions to be made about his char­ac­ter. Mean­while, the UNC called on all mem­bers: Pro­fes­sor Ra­jen­dra Ram­lo­gan—chair­man, Fred­er­ick Gilkes-deputy chair­man, and Eleanor Bridge­man-Vol­ney, San­dra Hon­oré, and Lyn­don Brent James to re­sign.”

The IC had to an­swer not just politi­cians but al­so the press. The IC found it nec­es­sary to re­spond to an ed­i­to­r­i­al of the Ex­press, dat­ed Au­gust 9, 2023, with the head­line, “In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion must ex­plain”.

It seems the IC is a con­ve­nient bobolee.

These mem­bers need to stand strong and do what is right.

Our democ­ra­cy needs our in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions to act in our best in­ter­est, re­gard­less of who crit­i­cis­es them.