Retired Justice Seymour Panton, Head of Jamaica’s chief anti-corruption body, has accused some lawmakers of using the cover of parliamentary privilege to launch personal attacks on persons connected to the Integrity Commission (IC).
In the annual report of the commission tabled in Parliament this week, Panton said some parliamentarians have used “abusive, disrespectful and libelous language” in their verbal tirade against persons connected to the commission.
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Panton said, “Right-thinking Jamaicans here and abroad have expressed to me and other commissioners how appalled they have been by the behavior of these parliamentarians.”
“Some have even taken the vitriol on to party political platforms. This is a great pity. I am sure that the foreigners in our midst are taking note of these developments. I am seeing true characters coming to the fore from some of the presentations and what I see does not look good,” the chairman of the commission stated.
At a Jamaica Labour Party Region 2 Conference at Riversdale in St Catherine in June, Everald Warmington, the member of parliament (MP) for St Catherine South West, launched a broadside against the leadership of the IC, calling it a rogue institution.
During a March 29 meeting of the Integrity Commission Oversight Committee, Warmington accused a director of the anti-corruption body of being politically exposed, charging that he worked as an adviser to Dr. Peter Phillips before being employed to the IC.
Edmund Bartlett, chairman of the oversight committee, cautioned Warmington at that meeting, noting that he was heading down the “wrong road”.
In early June, Justice Minister Delroy Chuck declared that the IC had no “integrity” and that government lawmakers had no confidence in the reports published by the corruption watchdog.
“The commission has demonstrated a certain bias, a certain unfairness, which demonstrates that this Integrity Commission lacks integrity,” he declared.
But Panton said in his chairman’s remarks that the commission was merely carrying out its mandate under the law.
“The commissioners, in particular, are individuals who do not need to blow their own trumpet. We are persons who have good records locally and internationally, through dedicated, hard, honest, sincere work. None of us needs the commission to burnish our image. We are persons who love our country, Jamaica, and wish to see this cloud of corruption removed.”
He made it clear that the commissioners of the IC were appointed by the governor general on the basis of their personal record.
“We do not wear party political garb, and reject any assertion of partisanship. We wish for the world to see Jamaica in a brighter light, and hope that parliamentarians, in particular, will cooperate with the commission, instead of trying to tear it down,” he said.
Panton urged parliamentarians to stop the “nit-picking and the use of derogatory language”.
