Challenges for Good Governance within the Westminster Framework

• Author: Bruce Golding
• Pages: 86-99

6 Challenges for Good Governance

within the Westminster Framework

Bruce Golding

Much discussion and scholarly work has taken place about the choice

of the Westminster system by Jamaica and other Caribbean countries

as we transitioned from colonization to independence. Professor

Trevor Munroe, in his book The Politics of Constitutional Decolonization

in Jamaica1 documents the scant consideration given in the framing of

our constitution to any major deviation from the Westminster prototype

into which we had been initiated even before, but especially since the

introduction of the first Order in Council in 1944. Some have chided

the framers of our constitution for undue orthodoxy and conservatism.

It is arguable whether we really had a choice. Some British colonies

in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific had varying elements of indigenous

organization and administrations that survived colonization and could

influence – even if not define completely – their ultimate form of

government. In our case, the Westminster system was the only form

we knew. Norman Manley argued in 1962 ‘Let us not make the mistake

of describing as colonial institutions which are part and parcel of the

heritage of this country.’2 In the same vein, Dr Lloyd Barnett, in his

book The Constitutional Law of Jamaica, asserts that:

the basic principles of the Jamaican Constitution are not the result

of political plagiarism or a slavish adoption of current constitutional

fashions but are rather the product of three centuries of historical

development and a deliberate decision to continue the pattern

of a constitutional system which had gradually evolved and in the

operation of which the country had acquired considerable experience.3

Let us remember, as well, that such advocacy as there was for radical

change in 1961 was driven more by anti-colonial passion and a desire

for a demonstrable, even if only symbolic, break with the past than

by any coherent articulation of an alternative form. It is a fact of

history that the drafting of the constitution was put on fast-rapid and

completed in record time of less than three months without any broad

public consultation. Even if that were not so, it is doubtful that the