Jamaica at 64: Are we becoming a republic or just talking about it?

Sixty-four years after the Union Jack came down at the National Stadium, Jamaica is still asking a question that ought, by now, to have a reasonably clear answer.

Are we going to become a republic or aren’t we?

Barbados did it.

On November 30, 2021, a Caribbean country considerably smaller than Jamaica removed Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state, installed Dame Sandra Mason as its first president and carried on.

Barbados did not collapse. It did not leave the Commonwealth. Tourists continued arriving. Property continued changing hands. International investors did not suddenly abandon Bridgetown. Its parliamentary democracy remained. Barbados remains a Commonwealth country, except its head of state is Barbadian.

Jamaica, meanwhile, is celebrating another Independence Day with King Charles III as King of Jamaica.

There comes a point when this becomes rather awkward.

“We have paid lip service to becoming a republic for many years,” says Dean Jones, founder of Jamaica Homes and a Realtor Associate.

“I have great affection for Jamaica, which perhaps makes the delay even more frustrating. Are we actually going to do this, or aren’t we? And if we’re asking Jamaicans to vote on it, then tell them honestly what changes, what doesn’t and why it matters.”

That last bit is important.

Because becoming a republic is considerably less dramatic in practical terms than some might imagine – and considerably more important constitutionally than others pretend.

WHAT WOULD ACTUALLY CHANGE?

Under the reform proposals, the British monarch would cease to be Jamaica’s head of state and would be replaced by a Jamaican president.

The model recommended by the Constitutional Reform Committee is essentially a non-executive or ceremonial presidency. Jamaica would not suddenly acquire an American-style president running the Government.

The Prime Minister would continue as head of government. Parliament would continue. Elections would continue. The basic machinery of the Jamaican state would continue.

It would principally mean that the highest symbolic office in Jamaica would finally be Jamaican.

But getting there is deliberately difficult.

Removing the monarchy involves deeply entrenched provisions of the Constitution. It therefore requires a two-thirds majority in both Houses of Parliament and approval by Jamaicans in a referendum. JIS confirms the constitutional process.

The Government has already tabled the Constitution (Amendment) (Republic) Bill, but political disagreement has persisted, particularly over the role of the Privy Council.

And here is where the public deserves clarity.

A REPUBLIC DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY MEAN LEAVING THE COMMONWEALTH

This misconception needs putting to bed.

India is a republic. Trinidad and Tobago is a republic. Guyana is a republic. Barbados is a republic.

They are all Commonwealth members.

The Commonwealth is no longer an association requiring the British monarch to be each country’s head of state.

Jamaica could therefore remove King Charles as King of Jamaica while continuing to cooperate with Britain and other Commonwealth states.

That matters because this should not be presented as Jamaica “breaking up with Britain”.

Our relationship is vastly more complicated – and more valuable – than that.

Britain and Jamaica share enormous family connections, trade, tourism, education, diplomacy, defence cooperation and a diaspora numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

Queen Elizabeth II’s relationship with Jamaica continued for 60 years after Independence.

History contains exploitation and injustice. It also contains subsequent friendship, cooperation and human relationships. A serious country should be capable of acknowledging both.

IT WOULDN’T AUTOMATICALLY REMOVE THE PRIVY COUNCIL EITHER

This is another distinction Jamaicans should understand before voting.

Becoming a republic and replacing the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council with the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) are separate constitutional questions.

Barbados illustrates this beautifully.

Barbados accepted the CCJ as its final appellate court in 2005. It did not become a republic until 2021.

One did not automatically cause the other.

Jamaica could theoretically become a republic while retaining the Privy Council unless the constitutional reforms separately deal with the final court.

That question has become politically contentious precisely because the Opposition has argued that constitutional decolonisation should include the judiciary.

Fair argument.

But let Jamaicans hear both cases and decide with their eyes open.

AND NO, YOUR PROPERTY DOESN’T SUDDENLY BECOME WORTHLESS

For a property-owning country, this deserves saying plainly.

Becoming a republic would not, simply by virtue of removing the monarchy, cancel registered titles, mortgages, leases, contracts or private property rights.

Nor does republican status inherently change Jamaica’s currency, banking system, taxes, citizenship or foreign-investment rules.

Those things require their own laws and policies.

This is rather important because Jamaica’s relationship with land predates Independence itself.

Colonial Jamaica was organised around huge landed estates worked by enslaved Africans. When slavery ended, former slave owners received British compensation while the formerly enslaved did not receive an equivalent financial settlement.

Yet newly freed Jamaicans did something extraordinarily important: they bought land.

The Free Villages that emerged after Emancipation were among Jamaica’s earliest great property revolutions. Families acquired small plots, constructed houses, cultivated farms and built churches and schools. The National Library records how landownership became part of exercising newly acquired freedom.

Later came political Independence, the UDC in 1968, the National Housing Trust in 1976 and generations of Jamaicans pursuing a distinctly Jamaican ambition: a piece of land and somewhere to call home.

Republicanism should be understood within that same journey of ownership.

This time, however, it is ownership of the state itself.

THEN THERE IS REPARATIONS

And suddenly this entire debate becomes acutely topical.

Jamaica is preparing to take its reparations campaign directly to Britain. The Government is advancing a petition to King Charles asking that legal questions concerning slavery and reparatory justice be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. A Jamaican delegation is reported to be travelling to Britain in September.

There is an almost extraordinary constitutional symmetry here.

Jamaica is considering removing the King as its head of state while simultaneously petitioning that King over the consequences of the colonial system from which Jamaica became independent.

But reparations should not be allowed to deteriorate into a shouting match about a giant cheque.

Money is part of it.

Acknowledgement is also part of it.

A formal apology matters. Historical records matter. Education matters. Cultural restitution matters. Scholarships, health, technology transfer, heritage programmes and development partnerships matter.

Indeed, CARICOM’s revised reparations framework expressly goes beyond financial compensation.

Repairing history need not require destroying a modern relationship with Britain.

It could mean constructing a more honest one.

JAMAICA MUST AVOID A BREXIT-STYLE INFORMATION FAILURE

There is a useful warning from Britain itself.

Brexit divided the United Kingdom because membership of the European Union involved complicated questions of trade, borders, regulation, migration, sovereignty and economics compressed into one deceptively simple referendum question.

People voted passionately on both sides. Years later, arguments continue about what voters were told, what they understood and what consequences were sufficiently explained.

Jamaica should learn from that experience – not whether to vote yes or no, but how not to conduct a constitutional referendum.

Before a Jamaican votes on republicanism, that voter should know:

What powers will the president have?

Who chooses the president?

Can the president be removed?

What happens to the governor-general?

Does anything change with the Privy Council?

Does Jamaica remain in the Commonwealth?

What does it cost?

What happens to treaties, citizenship and property?

And, most importantly: What tangible constitutional problem are we solving?

Those answers should be published in plain English – and Jamaican Patois where helpful – long before anyone receives a ballot.

“Government should not tell Jamaicans what to think; it should give them enough information to think for themselves,” Jones says.

“The lesson from major referendums elsewhere is simple: tell people the benefits, tell them the disadvantages, tell them what stays exactly the same. Then trust the population.”

That is democracy.

SO, JAMAICA, WHAT ARE WE DOING?

Today the flags will fly. There will be speeches about sovereignty, resilience and the extraordinary achievement of 1962.

And rightly so.

But 64 years after Independence, Jamaica cannot endlessly describe republicanism as something just over the horizon.

Barbados crossed that horizon nearly five years ago.

Republic status will not magically reduce crime, build houses, increase wages or repair roads. Nor will retaining the monarchy accomplish those things.

The argument is deeper.

Who should embody the Jamaican state?

A King living 4,600 miles away, or a Jamaican?

There are respectable arguments about how the answer should be implemented. There are legitimate questions about the presidency, the CCJ, constitutional safeguards and cost.

So let’s have them.

Let’s publish the facts.

Let’s debate them properly.

And then, perhaps, Jamaica should do the rather radical thing Independence was supposed to make possible:

Let Jamaicans decide.

- This article was first published by Jamaica Homes News at jamaica-homes.com. Email feedback to office@jamaica-homes.com and columns@gleanerjm.com. ONLINE ONLY COMMENTARY.