Ronald Thwaites | Is the state a force for good?

The outcry at the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority’s (NaRRA’s) high-chest rent and salaries proves the point I posited last week. The governing class and their satraps feel they are privileged rulers who are supremely capable and entitled to be rulers; the arbiters of who will live or die and the unquestioned stewards of public resources.

That’s the prevailing mentality. The Executive feels they can do anything and tell us only when they choose to. The behaviour closely resembles Washington’s prevailing runnings.

Contrary views on policy or offers of cooperation are rejected either because they come from the pernicious Opposition or because the person or group proposing them is easily dismissed as having feet of clay. Consensus is not only not sought, it is scorned and repudiated.

Why bother with citizen participation? Drop US$30 million two weeks before the next election to stimulate the minimum votes required to gain or retain power. Who cares that a conclusive majority of the electorate has already discarded the democratic process?

In truth, mass support is not needed to operate state power. Watchdog agencies and civil institutions are derided. Parliament is in danger of losing its capacity for rational discourse. Everything criss ... .

Just follow Trump and you will catch the rake. Congress, like the local backbench, has neutered itself. What provides partisan advantage, rather than what is principled, directs decisions. The ends justify the means. Public opinion, which points inexorably to policy changes, is ignored. Excessive executive power, personal arrogance, secrecy and duplicitous propaganda dominate. The political culture is bankrupt, but the stick men (and women!) continue to prop up its husk.

PROPER BOARD

A proper board of directors setting clear operational policy would have prevented the widening trust deficit which warped the NaRRA’s opening act last week. Promising to “phase een” the super-expensive rental as a concession to public disquiet after a secret lease has already been signed is a sop. Is so they going to run the recovery?

Make no mistake. Jamaica needs that agency to be supremely successful. The post-Melissa task is huge and already delayed; the borrowed money has to be repaid, and the concentration of power is so extreme that every complaint and shortcoming is going to be the ‘crosses’ of Holness and Anderson.

DISTRUST

They have brought it upon themselves. They have earned themselves red cards before the starting whistle.

The unsettling results of this power grab were on show last week. Both men ended up more distrusted than before because of insensitively negotiated office rent and a massive salary package untethered to targets and timelines for the promised spectacular achievements.

OWN GOALS

Add two other own goals. The damp squib, the eloquent silence of the so-called oversight group, has presaged their identity as the face-card eunuchs they were designed to be.

Then consider the breezy expansion by Tufton and others of NaRRA’s remit to reconstruct virtually all national infrastructure, hospitals, schools, roads, bridges and the like.

We want to believe you, Chris, but we can’t yet. Just finish Cornwall Regional and pay the doctors nuh!

WASTING WATER

Adding to the public’s sense of the incapacity of the State and its agencies is the debacle at the National Water Commission (NWC). With the greater part water produced deriving no revenue and less than 10 per cent of its receivables being collectable, while top-heavy structures and personnel remain intact, massive taxpayer support has to be presumed in perpetuity.

The mentality is that “Government will find the money”. From where? Is it that NaRRA will be tasked to build out additional water storage also? And what will prevent that greater supply being wasted too?

FORCE FOR GOOD?

What does the operation of places like the NWC and JUTC tell us about the capacity of the state to be a force for good? That is the crucial question for the nation. The answer to it in existential achievements provides the only justification for a regime’s legitimacy. Even the most recent opinion poll suggests that the majority don’t see government as a force for good. This is dangerous!

I grew up believing that a democratic state should be the antidote to predatory capitalism, the protector of the common good. That is the teaching of my Church and the foundation of liberal governance and human rights. If not that, then what? How well are we doing in this regard?

MANDATORY SENTENCES

A serious jurisprudential and ethical issue is arising between the judiciary and the legislature over the matter of mandatory sentences. It is the prerogative of the legislative branch of government to denounce particularly serious crimes by prescribing stiff penalties which do not breach the Constitutional Charter of Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

It is equally the responsibility of the judiciary, in considering each case with its evidentiary peculiarities, to give effect to good law to the extent a judge deems appropriate in every particular case.

If judicial discretion is removed by mandatory minimum sentences, judges become automatons bereft of an essential ingredient of judicial office.

Deterrence and denunciation are not achieved by tying judges’ hands and sneering at their decisions in Parliament. Swift, fair and open trials serve those ends. There is already provision for the state to appeal where a sentence is considered manifestly inadequate.

Law applied without the possibility of mitigation and compassion is sheer recrimination and merely repeats and magnifies the brutality of the original offence.

PUBLIC KILLING

Killing a malefactor before television screens is planned by the current United States government in December. It tells us about the increasingly Taliban-style elements of their political character. For further proof, check their detention centres bursting with men who are denied due process. Then, compare our slave laws, the original Gun Court law or the condition of hundreds remanded in our jails.

OUR ICE

Without body-worn cameras, don’t we do ICE-like bloodletting all over Jamaica? Forget the patently contrived optics and excuses for killing. It is about the dignity and worth of human life, no matter the evil done. It is about the right to life and the liberty of the subject.

Can’t we do better than Hegseth?

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the retired principal of St Michael’s College at The UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.