Faith and freedom

Martin Henry, Gleaner Writer

Last Friday evening, with the intervention of the Ministry of Education, a quiet, but significant, triumph for the Charter of Rights, and specifically for faith rights, took place, in a nail-biting, eleventh-hour finale at the University of Technology, Jamaica, the country's sole national university. The chancellor of the University, Edward Seaga, has been perhaps the country's leading political advocate for the Charter of Rights and, certainly, one of its founding fathers, as well as being a surviving architect of the original Constitution.

In her contribution to the Budget Debate last Thursday, leader of the Opposition, Portia Simpson Miller, said in her 'Justice' section: "This year, positive steps have been taken as both Houses of Parliament approved the new Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This may not be a perfect document. However, its provisions represent the collective wisdom of the Parliament. It is designed to guarantee and protect the rights of citizens in a free and democratic society. We must now take it from being fine words. It must become the protective shield of our citizens.

"The new Charter of Rights and Freedoms is meant to set us on a new course in abiding by the rule of law in the development of our democracy. If there are no applicable sanctions for breaches, the provisions will prove to be meaningless. No one is above the law. They are companion measures required for our citizens to develop the trust and confidence that rights and entitlements in the charter will be fully protected. We must move on them."

Defending faith

Against prejudicial legal advice, the university finally arranged, after the Ministry of Education intervened with commendable briskness, for a handful of students to begin their examination earlier than the "immovable" time which would have taken them into their Sabbath hours as Seventh-day Adventists. The religious rights and freedoms of these courageous young people were finally honoured, while the integrity of the examination was fully protected by sequestering the students until after the regularly scheduled start of the exam, a simple technique of accommodation with which UTech and other educational institutions are very familiar and which had been proposed from the very start of the unduly drawn-out petition.

Guided by the Constitution of Jamaica, in careful legal drafting, Section 19 of The University of Technology, Jamaica Act, 1999, 'Individual Rights', says: "(1) No person shall be excluded by reason of religious beliefs, political opinions, race or sex from admission as members or employees of the university or from office or employment therein or from any advantage or privilege thereof.

(2) Preference shall not be given to, or advantage withheld from, any person on grounds of religious beliefs, political opinion, race or sex."

Amazingly, one senior administrator divorced clause (2) from clause (1) and interpreted the second clause to mean that action to protect the faith rights and freedoms of conscientiously objecting students would be showing preference, when, clearly, failing to take such action would be "advantage withheld" within the plain sense of the intent of the section to protect individual rights!

Furthermore, an institution which is officially closed on Sundays, Christmas Day, Ash Wednesday and Good Friday has advised students that it will not grant any special regard for holy days! Petitioners were reminded that "at the point of application and enrolment, all students commit (contract) to abide by the rules and regulations, etc. of the university", and were referred to the application and enrolment forms.

Vulnerable parties

A thousand years of English Common Law on which our jurisprudence rests forbids seeking to have vulnerable parties sign away their rights under duress. Any conscientious objector to trespass upon his or her religious or other rights, who refused to sign authorisation for such trespass, would be as effectively excluded from entering the university as if armed guards had stood at the gate with a placard saying, "You ... are not welcome here!"

The Ministry of Education, supported by the Ministry of Justice, must seek to remove all such anomalies from application and enrolment forms and from procedures within state educational institutions. Citizens must not continue to be asked to sign away any of their rights in a misguided effort on the part of organisations to absolve themselves of the obligation to protect those very rights.

Popular fears, which surfaced in this case, that accommodating religious diversity will lead to unmanageable problems and operational chaos are unfounded. Jamaica has a long and proud history of religious tolerance without any such effects. And many other democratic, multicultural, multi-faith societies with a high regard for tolerance have demonstrated functional accommodation like that which finally prevailed at UTech last Friday. UTech, too, has a distinguished record of accommodating faith diversity, a record which it should strive to protect and maintain.

More often than not, people who hold strong beliefs and faith commitments which they are prepared to stand up for are disciplined, diligent, conscientious, and law-abiding citizens. In the particular case of Christians, they are under strict orders to honour and obey the laws of the states in which they dwell unless those laws irreconcilably conflict with instructions from God, in which case they are duty-bound to declare, as Peter and the other apostles did to the Jewish Sanhedrin, "We ought to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29)."

Generally, people with strong faith commitments are asking for two simple things: Do not force us to give allegiance to what we do not believe in. And do not hinder us from giving allegiance to what we do believe in. These are natural and normal human aspirations which enlightened human law seeks to protect such as in our Constitution and the new Charter of Rights.

American foundation

It is worth pointing out that the mighty American republic, with its large economic and political achievements, was created largely by people of firm faith who had fled Old World persecution in search of religious freedom.

Persecuted Jews and Roman Catholics found a safe haven here and have made sterling contributions to the life of this country.

Seventh-day Adventists started out here as a tiny and largely misunderstood group of religious outsiders but have made an extraordinary contribution to this country, and, as the religion demographics are showing, have grown to become the largest single Christian denomination in the country. Their children have a representation in higher education out of population proportion, a testament to their discipline and diligence as strong-faith people committed to education. They continue to face some discrimination over elements of their beliefs such as seventh-day Sabbath observance from sunset on Friday evening to sunset on Saturday evening in a country with a secular democratic Constitution but which nonetheless privileges Sunday as a weekly holy day.

It may be worth pointing out also that I have spent considerable time and effort with flexiwork legislation, not just in defence of a particular faith but in defence of every person's right to religious observance. I am one of the very few Jamaicans who have appeared in a personal capacity before the joint select committee of Parliament which examined flexiwork arrangements, publicly noted by Pearnel Charles, the current labour minister.

I have worked with the Ministry of Labour on flexiwork issues when Horace Dalley was minister. It was by the ministry's own initiative at that time, not by any lobbying, that the faith-work discussion was broadened beyond the Christian churches to bring the Islamic community, the Hindu community and the Rastafarian community to the table.

Critical matters

Two critical matters outstanding, from my advocacy perspective, are: 1) the need for a strong arbitration mechanism, especially to protect weaker parties in flexible work arrangements; and 2) making the job-application process legally religion-blind, except in certain carefully specified circumstances such as in faith-based private organisations, as the process has been made colour-blind. The same should be true for the education application process. One player in the UTech case stoutly declared that she would not employ Seventh-day Adventists. But no one now dares to advertise for "fair young woman (or black, for that matter!) to fill vacancy", as was the case in colonial Jamaica.

While we must celebrate the high degree of tolerance for differences of faith which prevail in our country, there is still prejudice and discrimination lurking out there. Conscientious objectors must be trained to recognise and to handle the recurring strategies of antagonists. Among these strategies are: ridicule, intimidation, psychological manipulation, and, finally, force. Conscientious objectors must learn to seek help.

Our anthem prayerfully proclaims: "Teach us true respect for all ..., Strengthen us the weak to cherish ..., Justice, truth be ours forever ... ." And that master teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, taught humankind, a principle present in all the major religions of the world, as C.S. Lewis once comprehensively documented, that "whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets."

Martin Henry is a commu-nication specialist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and medhen@gmail.com.