- Jamaica presents bill to remove Charles as head of state
- Critics say new president should be elected, not nominated
- Debate on moving final court of appeal to Caribbean
KINGSTON/LONDON, March 1 (Reuters) - Many Jamaicans want their country to ditch King Charles as head of state but a bill presented by the government to do just that has frustrated some critics of the monarchy who believe the change should go further to slash colonial ties.
Jamaica gained independence in 1962 but - like 13 other former British colonies - it still retains the British monarch as its head of state.
Public opinion on the Caribbean island of nearly 3 million people has been shifting for years, and in December the government of Prime Minister Andrew Holness presented a bill to remove King Charles.
Jamaica gained independence in 1962
Debate on moving final court of appeal to Caribbean
So not entirely independent then, we only got that in Australia in 1986 (Australia Act set the Australian High Court as the highest court of appeals, before that you could appeal to the British High Court)
based
Fetch
The monarchy hasn’t done enough for years for any overseas territories. No surprise, Charles should have been in the US and talking about Jamaica before Starmer visited. He would have too, but all monarchs have been hamstrung by the foreign office for a long time. The English parliament does not care
If they don’t want a politician as head of state, they could always make their own monarchy. They already have a royal family: the Marleys.
Marley
That’s a funny way of writing Lady Saw.
From further in the article
The bill is likely to pass the lower house of parliament as the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) currently has the two-thirds majority required, but it will need at least one opposition vote when it moves to the upper house. Even if rejected by the upper house, the bill can still be put to a national referendum, which the government hopes to hold by next year. To pass, the referendum would need two-thirds of the vote, rather than just a simple majority.
An interesting legislative process, I kinda like it.
I wish that we’d required two thirds majority for Brexit. It seems daft to do something so drastic when only 52% of voters wanted it (and just over a third of all people of voting age).
Yay! All other more important problems are solved! Poverty, crime, housing; now it’s just down to daylight savings time and the king.
It’s still important to have judicial and executive power under your own control, rather than the British.
