JAMAICA IS now back on track and moving forward with becoming a republic, according to a senior government figure.
This comes after Jamaica’s republic plans were temporarily halted in January this year, after a political disagreement between the two main parties.
The Jamaica Observer reported that Legal and Constitutional Affairs Minister Marlene Malahoo Forte said that plans to announce members of the Constitutional Reform Committee (CRC) by Prime Minister Andrew Holness had to be postponed, due to Opposition Leader Mark Golding’s delay in naming his party’s two members of the body.
However, on Tuesday, Governor-General, Sir Patrick Allen, announced that all teams have been established and are ready to move forward.
Mr Allen said that the Constitutional Reform process – which will facilitate the transition to republic status – will be assisted by a high-level Constitutional Reform Committee (CRC).
Mr Allen was speaking at the Throne Speech to open the 2023/24 Parliamentary Year in Gordon House on Tuesday, under the theme ‘A Stronger Jamaica: Consolidating our Recovery, Reigniting Our Decade of Growth’.
“Legislative teams have been established in all Ministries to work collaboratively with the Ministry of Legal and Constitutional Affairs to enhance the quality and pace of legislative reform across government,” he said.
The CRC will also have an advisory and oversight role of the historic move.
In June last year, Legal and Constitutional Affairs Minister Marlene Malahoo Forte said Jamaica will transition to a republic by 2025 – in time for the next general election.
”The goal is to ultimately produce a new Constitution of Jamaica, enacted by the Parliament of Jamaica, to inter alia, establish the Republic of Jamaica as a parliamentary republic, replacing the Constitutional Monarchy, and affirming our self-determination and cultural heritage,” Ms Malahoo Forte said at the time.
There is a growing republican movement across the Caribbean, following Barbados’ highly publicised transition to a republic in November 2021.
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Jamaica has been in economic; political, historical, cultural decline from the moment Her Majesty’s servants granted political independence to Jamaica in 1960.
At the recent Rex Nettleford memorial lecturer at the University of the West Indies; with Sir Hilary Beckles and former Prime Minister, PJ Paterson in attendance, Harvard’s professor Orlando Paterson revealed that half of Jamaica junior school pupils leave education functionally illiterate.
Jamaican has many real difficulties that becoming a Republic will not solve.
It’s just the right thing to do and the sooner we get rid of this archaic institution the better! I could understand the attachment some older Jamaicans may have felt for the Queen but she’s gone now and it’s the perfect opportunity to move forward to a Constitutional Republic. The last Royal visit was a disaster and a perfect example of how outdated and irrelevant the Monarchy is to a modern Jamaica. The days of bowing and scraping to a foreign Head of State are over
full-time England dem selves see the foolishness of the whole system and get rid too! Come on Jamaica, well overdue..
Jamaica is a land that were captured by the slave traders and they put our great great grandparents their to work for them so people told me. I don’t believe that as a descendent of African heritage we has the rights to demanding something that we never bought in the first place
In becoming a Republic Jamaica must also convert its literacy functionality to 100% if Jamaica is to move forward in the future.
Jamaican have proved that they can excel in many areas, why not literacy? That is the only way out now.