A meeting is slated to take place tomorrow, Wednesday, February 26, 2020 at 9am, in Clarendon, with the Political Ombudsman and those individuals involved in the violent incident that took place on February 23, 2020, that was captured on video and widely shared via social media.
This meeting is part of an investigation that the Ombudsman has undertaken. The Hon. Donna Parchment Brown, Jamaica’s Political Ombudsman, originally requested a meeting with the General Secretaries of both parties for February 26. That meeting is now being rescheduled to follow the Clarendon meeting. The date for the meetings with both party General Secretaries is to be agreed upon.
The Office of the Political Ombudsman (OPO) is neutral and independent, and is responsible for ensuring political actors comply with the Agreement and Declaration on Political Conduct (known informally as the Code of Conduct).
The Code has eight tenets, which include freedom of access to campaign, prohibiting violence amongst party members and public utterances that are malicious, slanderous or can trigger violence.
“This violent behaviour has no place in our political system,” Mrs. Parchment Brown said. “All parties are aware of what they have committed to in the agreement, and my office has the duty to hold them accountable on behalf of the public. This is exactly what I intend to do.”
