(NIDS) Now Requires Reasoned Debates And Discussions.…

In response to the recent rul­ing of the nation’s high­est court that theNational Identification and Registration Act (NIRA) is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, I wrote what I thought was sober­ing if not an intel­lec­tu­al response which sim­ply laid out some of what’s at stake now that the law is out.
Chief among the points I raised was the fact that, (a) this (NIDS) issue should not be seen as a par­ti­san issue. (b) The court’s deci­sion should not be viewed with par­ti­san lens­es, as the courts have a duty to rule based on what’s in the con­sti­tu­tion. © Those who peti­tioned the court and received the pos­i­tive rul­ing should not see them­selves as win­ners, nei­ther should the Government see itself as losers, as this is crit­i­cal to the nation’s devel­op­ment. (d) I artic­u­lat­ed a way for­ward which I thought could oper­ate on par­al­lel tracks, vis-a-vis an edu­ca­tion cam­paign which pre­cedes a rewrit­ing of the present leg­is­la­tion and or an amend­ment to the con­sti­tu­tion. (e) in clos­ing, I also laid out in brief, some of the con­se­quences of not hav­ing a nation­al data­base of our cit­i­zens in our present world.

Court Ruling On NIDS Ultimately A Minor Setback

As I pre­dict­ed, but had hoped would not be the case, the court’s rul­ing on this issue fell snug­ly into the crevass­es of our trib­al pol­i­tics. As was to be expect­ed, the conversation/​debate around the issue lacks the mer­it it deserves based on the authen­tic­i­ty of both points of view, replaced with parochial and out­dat­ed polit­i­cal fin­ger-point­ing.
Since the deci­sion was hand­ed down, a group of the Island’s major pri­vate sec­tor orga­ni­za­tions have lent their voic­es by call­ing for the com­mence­ment of the for­mer debate with a view to pass­ing a new piece of leg­is­la­tion which will give the nation a nation­al data­base of its cit­i­zens.
The group includes the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) and Jamaica Exporters and Manufacturers Association (JMEA).
In a joint state­ment, the busi­ness lead­ers said “As it appears that there is polit­i­cal con­sen­sus as to the neces­si­ty for imple­ment­ing a nation­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion law, we strong­ly urge both polit­i­cal par­ties to imme­di­ate­ly com­mence con­sul­ta­tions, with a view to set­tling the con­tentious dif­fer­ences in the leg­is­la­tion and avoid­ing the pro­vi­sions which offend our con­sti­tu­tion, so as to return a bill to the house and enable a smooth and ear­ly pas­sage.” 

That has been this writ­ers con­tention since the rul­ing. There is no ques­tion that Jamaica, like most oth­er coun­tries, MUST insti­tute a law in which all of her cit­i­zens are known by the state.
This is not lost on the Government, it is not lost on the Business lead­ers, it is not lost on this writer, and it should not be lost on the nation’s oppo­si­tion par­ty.
If the Opposition PNP has legit­i­mate con­cerns about poten­tial human rights abro­ga­tions as it relates to a National Identification Law, it should act respon­si­bly and air out those con­cerns com­men­su­rate with its oblig­a­tions to be a rea­son­able and respon­si­ble Opposition par­ty.
The posi­tion of the Opposition par­ty’s argu­ments should not be brushed aside, nei­ther should the rul­ing of the court be brand­ed polit­i­cal because it is the easy thing to do.
The court’s deci­sion should be viewed as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to sit down and address the parts of the leg­is­la­tion which the court ruled did not pass con­sti­tu­tion­al muster.
If the present con­sti­tu­tion is too archa­ic and inef­fec­tu­al to give cov­er to the (NIDS) leg­is­la­tion, then the nation’s lead­ers have a duty and a respon­si­bil­i­ty to amend the con­sti­tu­tion, or bet­ter yet throw out the whole darn thing.

There is a mind­set in our coun­try that effec­tive­ly latch­es onto things like crus­taceans to a coral reef as the cur­rent bar­rels by, cling­ing ever so des­per­ate­ly even though it is clear that the posi­tion in which it finds itself is not the most ten­able posi­tion.
Now, there is no deny­ing the pri­va­cy con­cerns of many. Governments have not been known to be exact­ly the most hon­or­able stew­ards of the peo­ple’s trust. Additionally, there are reli­gious and con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries in the pub­lic domain about glob­al­ism that this writer is not about to pooh-pooh away.

The web­site (yourgenome​.org )argues The National DNA Database has proved to be a valu­able tool in the fight against crime. However, many peo­ple are con­cerned about how it has evolved from a data­base con­tain­ing genet­ic infor­ma­tion on con­vict­ed crim­i­nals to one that has infor­ma­tion from a much wider group of peo­ple.
The pub­li­ca­tion went on:
The UK National DNA Database holds the DNA^? pro­files and rel­e­vant DNA sam­ples from a select num­ber of UK indi­vid­u­als. It is the largest data­base of its kind in the world and is con­tin­u­ing to grow each year. Every pro­file in the UK National DNA Database is derived from a sam­ple of human mate­r­i­al, such as sali­va or hair, col­lect­ed from a crime scene or police sus­pects.
However, many peo­ple are against the idea of extend­ing the DNA data­base because of the poten­tial threat it has to our pri­va­cy. While a DNA pro­file pro­vides very lit­tle infor­ma­tion about some­one, their DNA sam­ple con­tains infor­ma­tion that can reveal their eth­nic­i­ty or how sus­cep­ti­ble they are to dis­ease. The risk of data abuse is there­fore poten­tial­ly high.

For those on either side of this issue, a look at some of the Information on this site may be pret­ty help­ful in arriv­ing at a more rea­soned and informed posi­tion.
Ultimately though, the trend of cre­at­ing nation­al data­bas­es seems to be the direc­tion the world is head­ing and not where it is mov­ing from.
Subsequently, though (yourgenome​.org ) con­tends that there is no data to sup­port the the­o­ry that hav­ing a nation­al data­base with peo­ple who are not known crim­i­nals helps with solv­ing more crimes, and that it presents a clear dan­ger of false match­es, it also argues the fol­low­ing.
The infor­ma­tion derived from each DNA pro­file can be a pow­er­ful tool in the fight against crime. If a match is made between a DNA pro­file at a crime scene and a DNA pro­file on the data­base, it can help police to iden­ti­fy a pos­si­ble sus­pect quick­ly. They can then use this infor­ma­tion as strong evi­dence to demon­strate an indi­vid­ual is guilty of a crime.
https://​www​.yourgenome​.org/​d​e​b​a​t​e​s​/​i​s​-​i​t​-​e​t​h​i​c​a​l​-​t​o​-​h​a​v​e​-​a​-​n​a​t​i​o​n​a​l​-​d​n​a​-​d​a​t​a​b​ase.

As I wrote in the pre­vi­ous Article on this sub­ject, this issue requires rea­soned lev­el-head­ed and mature dia­logue which takes into con­sid­er­a­tion all of the pros and cons as much is avail­able on the sub­ject.
The deci­sion of the court is a clear indi­ca­tion that the law lacked the foun­da­tion­al strength to with­stand a con­sti­tu­tion­al smell-test.
This law affects all Jamaicans and so the chal­lenge which came from the PNP was pre­dictable, though the peti­tion­ers were exclu­sive­ly PNP par­ti­sans.
That is the modus operan­di of the People’s National par­ty.
The INDECOM act writ­ten and con­struct­ed with the obvi­ous­ly same degree of alacrity as the NIDS act only affects the police so nei­ther Government nor Opposition felt a need or respon­si­bil­i­ty to be judi­cious in the word­ing or con­tent of the law.
They knew that the gullible and hap­less police would nev­er test its con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty in the courts and so it stands.
This issue will not go away, this is just the begin­ning of what will be a pro­tract­ed process which inex­orably will con­clude with a dif­fer­ent ver­sion of NIDS.
Mark my words.….