Having set the bar and declared yourself equal to the task, it is hard to elicit sympathy by whining about how difficult that bar is to scale or by complaining of being held to a standard higher than others. Which, essentially is what Prime Minister Bruce Golding did in Parliament on Tuesday.

In opposition, Mr Golding made more than a credible case for a new style of governance - one underpinned by the rule of law, respect for differences and for a political creed devoid of rancour and bitterness. He was for a new inclusiveness.

It, therefore, could, or should not have been surprising to Mr Golding that there was dismay, and even outrage, over his handling of the Vasciannie Affair and the attempted constitutional putsch against the members of the Public Service Commission (PSC).

Constitutional challenge

Under the Jamaican Constitution, appoint-ments to the civil service, except in a few specific cases, are by the Governor General acting on the recommendation of the Public Service Commission. If the prime minister objects to a proposed appointment, he may ask the PSC to review the recommendation. The commission is not bound to change its mind. That is what the PSC did in the case of Professor Stephen Vasciannie, a one-time political colleague of Mr Golding, whom the commission had recommended for the job of solicitor general.

When the PSC did not relent, Mr Golding had them fired by the Governor General. Their constitutional challenge to the PM's action is before the court.

Vindication

Our concern is Mr Golding's attempt at an artful, reductionist and morally relative vindication for this behaviour. He drew on a 1977 letter written by late Professor Gladstone Mills, then chairman of the PSC, to the Governor General at the time, the late Sir Florizel Glasspole.

Michael Manley, steeped in the ideology of democratic socialism and freshly returned to office, asked the PSC for its resignation, as he had done with boards of statutory bodies. The PSC acquiesced.

Golding held up Manley's action as though it provided exculpation because Manley's party is now in opposition and questions the behaviour of the current PM.

But respect for the Constitution and holding to high standards of governance cannot be morally relative. Michael Manley was wrong. Golding cannot effect extrication by harking back to Manley's inadequacies of three decades ago - not when he proposes a new and better order.

Ideological posturing

Indeed, if he reads carefully the letter he so fully quoted in the House, he will note Professor Mills' unease with Manley's ideological posturing with the PSC and the Constitution. He believed Manley was in breach of the fundamental law.

Professor Mills, 30 years ago, pointed out that the PSC was established "within the framework of the Constitution, which expressly constitutes the commission as a non-partisan, impartial and independent body". He forewarned about the situation that exists today.

Professor Mills and his colleagues made an egregious error: they resigned rather than be fired and then tested the matter in court.

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