Jamaican opposition leader insists constitutional reform must include removing king as head of state and severing ties with privy council

Opposition Leader and President of the People’s National Party (PNP), Mark Golding, has declared that his party will not support the removal of King Charles as Jamaica’s head of state without Jamaica also severing ties from the UK-based Privy Council at the same time. This declaration, made Sunday at the PNP’s 85th annual conference at the National Arena, signals that the Government’s constitutional reform process could be in trouble. It requires a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate for the monarch to be removed as head of state, it being a deeply entrenched provision of the constitution. While the Andrew Holness-led Government has a super majority in the House, it will need the vote of one Opposition senator to be able to enact the change. On [17 September], Golding insisted that the PNP supported constitutional reform, remarking that “the constitution is not a meal deal, it is a big deal." "As a first step, we must reform the constitution to complete the decolonisation process. We need to decolonise Jamaica once and for all," he stated.
Read the full article here: Jamaica Observer