Constitutional Reform
LANDS currently has the most developed proposals on constitutional reform. This page is intended to serve as a hub for information on our constitutional reform proposals, our work on constitutional reform in general, as well as other information on constitutional reform that may be useful to the public.
Our Work
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One part of our work on constitutional reform is consulting people to find out what they want to see in a constitution. Right now, this work is limited to consulting people among and around our own base in our own growing network, but we intend to expand beyond this.
We are willing to hear more views on constitutional reform and specific proposals that have been advanced, and we are also willing to help groups to develop and articulate their own proposals. Feel free to invite us to meet with your organisation, group, or community.
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Another part of our work on constitutional reform is educating people about how the current political system functions, the meanings of words and phrases that they may hear in discourse, and the different possibilities that exist for our future.
We have already been invited to meet with other organisations and groups. Feel free to invite us to meet with your organisation, group, or community.
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Ultimately, our work on constitutional reform aims to bring about real change. Our movement has its own views, values, and proposals. We are promoting our own proposals while engaging proposals from other organised entities.
Our Proposals
Main Points
Below are summaries of our proposals on specific parts of constitutional reform. We elaborate further on these things in our detailed proposals.
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We want Jamaica to have a directly-elected President to serve as the representative head of state. We are advocating for a semi-presidential system where the President has significant powers and responsibilities, but is separate from the head of government.
In our model, the main responsibilities of the President are representing the people at the national and international levels, participating in the legislative process, nominating persons to occupy key official posts, and holding the government accountable.
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The cabinet is the executive branch of the state. We want the cabinet to be separate from the parliament.
We believe that representing a constituency and running a ministry are completely different jobs, where each requires full attention.
We also believe that it is a conflict of interest for someone to be a cabinet minister and also a member of the parliamentary body that is responsible for holding cabinet ministers accountable. In our model, the Prime Minister would be the head of government. No members of the cabinet may be Senators or Members of Parliament.
Members of the cabinet would be appointed, not elected. They would be appointed by and accountable to elected officials, who would have the power to remove and replace them at any time.
The President would nominate persons for the position of Prime Minister, and the parliament may confirm someone by majority vote. Similarly, the Prime Minister would nominate persons for other cabinet positions, and the parliament may confirm the nominees by majority vote. Someone may only be appointed to fill a cabinet post if they meet the requirements specified by law.
Cabinet positions would be determined by law. The parliament may create, merge, split, or abolish ministries by passing bills to do so. A law that establishes a ministry must also establish requirements for someone to hold the position of minister of that ministry. For example, the law can specify that the Minister of Health must be someone who has work experience in healthcare. The parliament may amend the laws that govern ministries and the qualifications for someone to be a minister, but no single person will have the power to create or abolish ministries on a whim.
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We want a reform of the parliament. Our model maintains a bicameral parliament, where the Senate is the appointed upper house and the House of Representatives is the elected lower house, but we want some changes to be made. We want the Senate to be elected, and we want the House of Representatives to focus on representing their constituencies rather than their parties.
We want there to be a single national election for the presidency and the Senate. Each presidential candidate would run alongside a team of candidates for the Senate. The distribution of Senate seats will be determined by the percentage of votes that each presidential candidate wins in the presidential election; if a presidential candidate wins 15% of the votes, then their team wins 15% of the Senate seats. The presidential candidate that wins the most votes will become the President and their team will win 5 extra seats in the Senate.
Each parliamentary constituency will elect a Member of Parliament as its representative. The cabinet will be separate from the parliament, so Members of Parliament can focus on being the voices of their constituents rather than focusing on government versus opposition.
Political leaders will sit in the Senate rather than the House of Representatives. Since Jamaicans are accustomed to having political leaders from both major parties being represented in the same parliamentary body at the same time, we advocate for retaining this parliamentary character. In our model, the President will be a member of the Senate and be seen as the most important member; we believe it is important for the President to sit among other political leaders and to be able to engage in debates with them.
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We advocate for the people to have more power through mechanisms that we have proposed.
We believe that a part of the responsibilities of Members of Parliament must be active consultation of their respective constituents through regular scheduled constituency meetings. Working in a constituency and going to parliament should not be separate jobs; the point of going to parliament should be to represent the constituencies that elected them to parliament.
We also believe that the people in a constituency should have the right to recall their Member of Parliament at any time for any reason.
Our Documents
After reading the summarised version of our proposals, you may want to learn more details or find out the reasoning behind them. We have articulated our proposals in greater detail, and we have other documents that you can download and read:
Other Proposals
Below are other organisations that have developed proposals on constitutional reform, including the government. Click on any logo to view the respective organisation’s proposals.