Too much power- Atherley

Opposition Leader Reverend Joseph Atherley believes too much power is being placed in the hands of Prime Minister Mia Mottley.

In an interview with Barbados TODAY, Atherley pointed out that several pieces of legislation had recently been passed giving the PM an inordinate amount of power.

He said the most recent example was an amendment to the Emergency Management Act last year, which gave Mottley unprecedented authority under the COVID-19 directives.

A section of that legislation gives Government the power to temporarily confiscate land or buildings if deemed necessary in its fight against COVID-19.

The leader of the People’s Party for Democracy and Development (PdP) said while he understood the reason behind the directives, he was opposed to the Prime Minister’s overwhelming power.

“The Emergency Powers Act of the 1930’s gives power to the Cabinet of Barbados, the Government through the Cabinet of Barbados to enact certain directives in a state of emergency. If you check the Emergency Powers Act, not the Emergency Management Act which they passed last year, you will see that when it comes to appropriating people’s land that is prohibited in that legislation.

“What they have done is to insert a clause 6 and this clause 6 was inserted after the debate had commenced on the floor of the House and after I had replied to the Attorney General. They then sought to insert this amendment, clause 6, which allows the Cabinet of Barbados to give all of its power to the hands of the Prime Minister, one single individual,” Atherley explained.

“So you have a situation now where the Prime Minister at her own discretion, without reference to Cabinet, can commandeer, requisition, acquire, take over your property, simply by saying that in relation to COVID she needs to have that property for whatever purpose and it does not say for how long.

“It is alright to tell a fella that you have to be in your house by 6 o clock; it is alright to tell a fella that you can’t go to church on certain days; it is alright to tell a business that you have to close, but when you come to property you’re dealing with a constitutionally enshrined right and therefore a single individual should not have the power to do that without reference to Parliament or without reference to court and that is the point.”

The Opposition Leader said this was evident in recent legislation such as the Public Finance Management Act as well as the Planning and Development Act, which gives the Prime Minister the final say in town planning authorization.

“Now you have to look at that in the context of what has been happening recently. In several pieces of major legislation that have come to Parliament in the last two years, a lot of power is concentrated in the hands of the Prime Minister and I have repeatedly spoken to that,” he insisted.

Atherley said Attorney General Dale Marshall was merely engaging in semantics while addressing the nation in a press conference last night.

Marshall assured that Government had no intention of taking advantage of Barbadians.

The AG said: “The Government of Barbados is constrained by its Constitution. We cannot and will not take anyone’s property without compensation. You will notice that the order does not say we will acquire it, it says requisition which suggest and which conveys the impression that for as long of a period of time that is needed the Government may be required to take extraordinary steps and access facilities and assets that it does not have in its control.”
(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)