Peter Espeut | The Queen is not our only monarch

The ancient philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) wrote that “It is more proper that law should govern than any one of the citizens” (Politics 3:16). Aristotle was one of the earliest advocates of the “rule of law”. His teacher Plato (ca. 428-347 BC) taught that “Where the law is subject to some other authority and has none of its own, the collapse of the state, in my view, is not far off; but if law is the master of the government and the government is its slave, then the situation is full of promise and men enjoy all the blessings that the gods shower on a state.”

The “rule of law” implies that every person is subject to the law, including persons who are lawmakers, law-enforcement officials and judges. In this sense, it stands in contrast to tyranny or oligarchy, where the rulers are held to be above the law.

This ideal of the “rule of law” has been hard to achieve in reality, largely because the ones who rule are usually the same ones who make the laws; and they often make the laws to suit their rule, to give themselves the powers of monarchs. So often the law has become a tool of government, effective in suppressing the citizens, rather than ensuring that those in authority are unable to abuse the power they have.

And those who make the laws usually apply the laws strictly when others break them, and loosely when they come in conflict with it.

A society in which government officers have a great deal of discretion has a low degree of “rule of law”, whereas a society in which government officers have little discretion has a high degree of “rule of law”.

Jamaican politicians seem to prefer to rule the law rather than to create law that binds them.

EMPTY SYMBOLISM

I agree with Prime Minister Andrew Holness that the replacement of the British sovereign as Jamaica’s head of state with a local either executive or ceremonial president is likely to be empty symbolism. In my view, the monarchical form of government is woven so finely into the fabric of the Jamaican polity that a simple change of title (from governor general to president) while leaving the monarchical mindset in place will make little difference. We will still have a monarchy!

Presently, Her Majesty the Queen is not our only monarch. In our political system, every government minister is a little monarch.

I first came across this years ago when I was more deeply involved in fisheries management issues. The reason our conch ( Strombus gigas) resources are so valuable is that countries which failed to prevent overfishing have seen their stocks collapse. “Free market” forces attracted too many fishers into the valuable fishery, and they fished their conch resources almost to extinction. [My regular readers will know that I am a free market atheist; the religious belief in something called the “free market” is one of the most successful fake news campaigns in history!]

If a country wishes to protect its fishery resources (or forests or populations of birds or deer or wild meat) they must strictly regulate harvesting with some sort of licensing regime. The population dynamics of the species to be harvested must be assessed, and the rate of hunting allowed must be equal to or less than the rate of natural replacement (births of new animals, growth rate of trees). Hunting will then be sustainable into the centuries.

Jamaica has an efficient system of conch assessment which determines the maximum sustainable yield; the technocrats (fisheries scientists and statisticians) objectively determine the number of fishing licences (with catch quotas) which may be granted. No one is ever likely to get a permit to harvest as much conch as their fleet and gear can bring in, and everyone complains.

Under our fishing laws, the minister with responsibility for fisheries is a little monarch; if a person is denied a licence, or feels that his quota is too small, he is allowed to appeal to the minister. There were cases where the minister overturned the decisions of the Fisheries Licensing Authority and granted new licences, and in some cases increased quotas.

What this did was to put Jamaica’s conch resources in jeopardy. The GDP from the fisheries sector will see an increase this year, but next year when the conch population falls, there will be less to harvest, and GDP from the conch sector will decline over time, and eventually disappear.

Jamaican ministers with responsibility for fisheries should not have the discretion to overrule the technocrats in increasing licences issued and catch quotas. It is irrational, inefficient, and destructive to the natural environment and the economy. We need to the protected from chronically short-sighted politicians who have their special interests to serve in the short term.

ABOLISH MONARCHICAL PRACTICE

If Jamaican politicians decide to abolish the role of the British monarchy in our national affairs, will they also abolish Jamaican monarchical practice in fisheries matters? I doubt it!

When the technocrats in the Government’s environmental agency decided to deny a permit for the mining of limestone from the Puerto Bueno Mountain in St Ann, the monarchical mining minister – in this case, Prime Minister Holness – overturned their decision on appeal. The technocrats determined that the value of the ecosystems – the flora and fauna in an ecological relationship – which would be destroyed was not offset by the ephemeral economic gains from mining.

Jamaican ministers with responsibility for the environment should not have the discretion to overrule the environmental agency which has come to an objective scientific decision.

If Jamaican politicians decide to abolish the role of the British monarchy in our national affairs, will they also abolish Jamaican monarchical practice in environmental matters? I doubt it!

Recent revelations are that in the past, various monarchical ministers of national security have overturned the revocation of firearm licences for persons with criminal traces, and approved applicants whose firearm user permit applications were denied by the board of the Firearm Licensing Authority.

If Jamaican politicians decide to abolish the role of the British monarchy in our national affairs, will they also abolish Jamaican monarchical practice in ministerial matters? I doubt it! The monarchy will be with us in Jamaica for a long, long time!

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a development scientist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com