Above: the Jamaican Parliament (JIS Photo)

Communications in Jamaica’s Parliament have traditionally been oral — despite a number of members who violate the rules by reading from prepared texts. But one senator, Norman Grant, has tabled a motion in the Jamaican Senate seeking to have the use of electronic communications technology permitted in Gordon House.

The proposal by Grant, a senator in the opposition People’s National Party, comes against a long-held tradition of Parliament which provides for only oral presentations. The motion seeks to allow the use of computers and other electronic information sources, on the basis that technological developments necessitate the use of computers to access certain data, like annual reports that are increasingly released electronically by government agencies .

“If technology cannot be used, then there is no way the information can be accessed,” he said. “There are a number of things that, as a nation, our Parliament must lead from the front on, and the fact that the whole world is using technology as a means of growth and development, barring it during the sitting of the Senate seems contradictory.”

–Jamaica Information Service