Golding/Cabinet should resign

The Editor, Sir:

As I see it and am confident that most people share my opinion listening to the media and the men and women in the streets and the marketplaces, the Government should resign for disgracing our country and our people wherever they are.

This call is supported by the following facts in the public domain:

The prime minister says in Parliament that in his capacity as leader of the Jamaica Labour Party, he gave authorisation for Manatt, Phelps & Phillips to help lobby the United States on the extradition issue and he went on to say, "I made it clear, however, that this was an initiative to be undertaken by the party, not by or on behalf of the Government."

He also said that he is not a lawyer but he is a student of law. As a student of law, and I have no doubt he is, isn't he aware that only a convention of the Constitution (which is not law) makes the leader of the successful political party becomes prime minister? Further, the Constitution does not create political parties, but by necessary implication is aware of their existence and condones them but makes provision for the appointment of a prime minister without any reference to any political party when it says in Section 70(1):

Section 70(1) - Whenever the governor general has occasion to appoint a prime minister he, acting in his discretion, shall appoint the member of the House of Representatives who, in his judgement, is best able to command the confidence of a majority of the members of that House.

Safe conclusion

Section 71 provides that the office of the prime minister shall become vacant if for example, he resigns his office. In substance therefore, when the prime minister makes statements in Parliament, he makes those statements as prime minister; and if he makes statements concerning public affairs when presiding over his party, the safe conclusion is that he makes those statements as prime minister. It matters not what he thinks and so it is my considered opinion that his direction was in his capacity as prime minister. Once a prime minister always a prime minister unless his appointment is terminated under Section 71 such as through his resignation.

If the prime minister has lost the confidence of the people by action or omission, under the principle of collective responsibility, the entire Cabinet should resign, afortiori, when the Cabinet does not show any disapproval of the action or omission.

By the way, shouldn't the travelling claim for the solicitor general be exposed to the public to aid in the understanding of his travelling and his encounter with the Manatt firm; and should the prime minister say whether or not he gave direction for the solicitor general to travel and if he did, supply time, date and place. And does not Mr Vaz think as a paid public officer, he should tell the public what Mr Brady says both of them know.

Let the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth be told to the public, but for heaven's sake let the Government resign before the heavens fall.

I am, etc.,

OWEN CROSBIE

Mandeville, Manchester