Improving our Constitution

THE EDITOR: Ever since we inherited and fashioned our Constitution after the pseudo-Westminster system under which our Parliament operates, there have been calls, from time to time from many quarters, to introduce reforms which will better serve the interests of the widest possible cross-section of our population. Despite the minor amendments which have been made over time, the basic format of our Constitution has remained unchanged.

It is my considered view that our Constitution (and parliamentary system) is not only adversarial, but, because of the cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic nature of our society, it also does not serve the best interests of a sufficiently wide cross-section of our people since it lends itself to the exploitation by the politicians of the ethnic and tribal instincts of our population. This encourages the alienation and polarisation of large sections of our society as opposed to the cultivation of a truly national-conscious body of citizens.

In the interim, however, in the absence of wide-ranging modifications to our current system which may have an elongated gestation period, I wish to recommend some simple but practical and realistic amendments which could be applied, hopefully, with the general concurrence of the Government and the Opposition within a reasonable timeframe.

The following recommendations are proposed for early implementation:

1. Introduce a new election for the president of the republic every five years.

The elected president will have the sole responsibility for the appointment of the chairpersons and members of the following bodies:

Judicial and Legal Services Commission, Public Service Commission, Teaching Service Commission, Police Service Commission, Salaries Review Commission, Integrity Commission, Tax Appeal Board, Election and Boundaries Commission, Public Service Appeal Board, Equal Opportunities Commission, National Carnival Commission, and the ombudsman.

All these appointments are to be subject to ratification by a two-thirds majority of the members of the House of Representatives who are eligible to vote.

2. The president of the Senate and the speaker of the House will be appointed at the sole discretion of the president after consultation with the prime minister and the leader of the opposition.

Both these people should ideally be either retired Appeal/High Court judges or eminent people from the legal fraternity and are to act solely as the presiding officer in the conduct of meetings of the House/Senate in accordance with the standing orders, but they will not be allowed to vote at any of such sittings.

The vice president of the Senate and the deputy speaker will be selected by the president from among members of the House/Senate who are not ministers.

3. The president, in his/her sole discretion, will continue to appoint nine members representing a wide cross-section of civil society as senators.

4. The attorney general or any person appointed to act in that position will be a public servant duly selected by the Public Service Commission and will be a member of the Cabinet but will not be allowed to vote at any sittings of the Cabinet, the House of Representatives or the Senate.

5. The prime minister will have no power or authority to veto or object to any appointment to any public office by any of the service commissions appointed by the president, including but not limited to those of the attorney general, chief justice, director of public prosecutions, chief state solicitor, solicitor general, registrar general, commissioner and deputy commissioner of police and the ombudsman.

6. No person who is the parent, spouse, child, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law or sister-in-law of either the president, prime minister or leader of the opposition or any minister of government, unless elected, will be eligible to be appointed as a minister, parliamentary secretary, senator or as a member of any service commission or board of any state/statutory enterprises.

7. All candidates contesting elections must have been resident in the constituency being contested for a minimum period of five years.

These simple recommendations will at least fine-tune our current system and provide some level of improvement while we seek to find a system which is not adversarial and divisive as is our current one.

ALBERT MARQUEZ

Petit Valley