ADVANCES IN POLITICAL PARTY FINANCING
Political Party Registration and Financing was tabled in 2010, while its recommendations on Campaign Financing were submitted in 2011 and revised recommendations on the latter subject presented in 2013. These reports have informed the latest amendment to the Representation of the People Act.
In Jamaica, the public purse has not been among the sources of financing conventionally available to political parties. However, the ECJ has identified state funding, monitoring and enforcement, and limits on contributions and expenditure as key areas for oversight in seeking to strengthen the regulation of campaign financing.2
Implicit in this stance is the view that the inflow of material
resources to political parties and the manner in which such resources are utilised ought to be duly regulated, and that it is fitting for the state to play a role in providing finances to these bodies.
Both positions are supported by the European Commission for Democracy through Law (the Venice Commission), which describes the regulation of political party funding as “essential to guarantee parties independence from undue influence…and to provide for transparency in political finance.”3
They state, moreover, that mechanisms for public funding have been designed and adopted throughout the globe and that such systems “are aimed at ensuring that all parties are able to compete for elections
in accordance with the principle of equal opportunity, thus strengthening political pluralism and helping to ensure the proper functioning of democratic institutions.”4
It is therefore apparent that the ECJ’s vision for the regulation and funding of political parties has international support in principle and in practice.
The ECJ proposes that political parties recognised by them are to be financed from funds from the State; dues charged to their members; contributions from individuals, organisations and fundraising events; and income earned from legal sources.5 In recognising the
appropriateness, and indeed the importance, of private funding, the ECJ makes the following assertions:
“There are individuals and organisations that will contribute to the funding of political parties based on their agreement with the ideological principles of the party, the policies that they propose and personality and quality of the individuals proposed by the party to hold public office. The framework for funding of political parties must of necessity allow for funding to come from such sources.”6 They are, however, seized of the potential pitfalls of such donations, noting that “the danger to be avoided is that no single individual or organisation … should be able to contribute a sum that gives that individual or organisation sufficient voice and influence to disproportionately influence the decision-making of the party by virtue of the size of that contribution.”7
The Parliamentarian | 2015: Issue Three | 165
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