Among the regrets to which the former prime minister, Mr P.J. Patterson, admitted at the time of his retirement in 2006 was the failure of legislators, during his nearly dozen years as head of government, to conclude and implement a package of constitutional reforms.

Mr Patterson, in his last speech to a joint sitting of Parliament, bequeathed to his successors an obligation to proceed with urgency towards a conclusion.

"I beseech the new leaders on both sides of the House to commit themselves to having these changes take place before the next general elections are constitutionally due," he said.

When Mr Patterson spoke on that March day, a general election was, at best, 18 months away. He would have been well aware, too, that of the reforms being grappled with, after nearly 14 years of deliberations, the one that was most advanced and around which there was greatest consensus was the Charter of Rights.

Document elements

This is an important document. It attempts, in simple language, and individually enumerated, the rights contained in Chapter 3 of the Jamaican Constitution and seeks to place greater limits on the possibility for their derogation by the state.

Mr Patterson obviously appreciated that even if we waited on the other elements of the reforms to congeal into implementable forms, it would make sense to proceed with the Charter of Rights as a way of expanding and expressly proclaiming the inalienable rights of the Jamaican people. Apparently, some of Mr Patterson's former colleagues do not agree to, or they no longer feel bound by, the ideals or sense of urgency of their former leader.

We can find no other interpretation of the attitudes of A.J. Nicholson, the Opposition People's National Party's (PNP) shadow justice minister, and Robert Pickersgill, the party's chairman, in their objection to debate on the charter proceeding. Oh, there is another probable explanation: political opportunism.

Entrenched clause

As it presumes the removal of an entrenched clause of the constitution, the Charter of Rights, requiring passage of two-thirds majority, would have sat on the table of the House for at least three months. The Opposition does not intend, unless it is accompanied by legislation, to nullify the Privy Council's ruling in the Pratt and Morgan case that declares inhumane and null and void to maintain the death penalty for someone who has been on death row for over five years.

The previous administration argues that Pratt and Morgan and attendant rulings by the Privy Council remain fundamental hindrances to the exercise of capital punishment, which Parliament last November voted to maintain.

First, we feel the fundamental rights of Jamaicans as afforded in the charter are too important to be delayed, in a game of quid pro quo. Second, as we have argued before, capital punishment is not the deterrent to crime that too many people claim.

Finally, we draw the PNP's attention to the Caribbean Court of Justice's (CCJ) ruling in Joseph and Boyce, that rights under the prerogative of mercy are justiciable. Moreover, the CCJ held that a country's participation in international treaties, like the human rights commissions of the UN and the OAS used by murder convicts, provides a legitimate expectation of due process under those agreements and that they will be given "reasonable time" for the process to work.

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