#BTSpeakingOut – What type of Republic is coming?

The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

by Algernon Atherley

The countdown is on to November 30, the date when Barbados is expected to become a Republic. We have a problem, don’t we? To date the electorate has not been informed what kind of republic Barbados will have.
Certainly, the printed media don’t know, otherwise, they would have told us. None of the moderators on brass tacks have been able to help us. And Tall Boy, Rawle and Straker’s Tenantry seem to be Missing in Action (MIA).
A republic may be defined by three characteristics. The people control the power of Government, the people elect officials to represent them in parliament for the purpose of serving their interest and the people and their elected representatives are to work

cooperatively to promote one common interest and not individual or personal interest.
It is the citizens that have the supreme power and that power is exercised through the vote. There are varying types of republics and each republic is recognised by its laws and its values.
What type of Republic will Barbados be? What laws, principles and precepts will change when Barbados is declared a republic? I have an interest in creation laws, which is the standard God set for creation. We cannot improve on God’s law.
What makes a country a country, is law.
Law gives life and protects life. It brings control for our benefit and it ensures civility. In Barbados, our constitution is our premier law. A constitution is a contract that people make with themselves to keep certain laws and ideals. You cannot build a country unless the people agree to obey its laws.
The first thing you do to establish a country is to make a constitution. Bad things happen when the law is violated. For example, there is a law of healthy eating. When your arteries are clogged up, there is no demon. You may simply have broken the law of healthy eating.
Law is designed to bring order. God designed everything in the world to function by law. Creation was designed to function by laws that keep order. Where there is disorder there is either the absence of law or the violation of law.
And this brings us to the republic of Barbados. Our move to a republic can hardly be described as smooth sailing. To date the government appears to be operating as secret agents.
They have not taken the electorate into their confidence.
Planning appears to be behind closed doors, and I wanted to enquire which of the long-standing creation laws will be withdrawn from our constitution.
Which immoral law that would offend God and His people would be added? I wanted to find out if the new constitution would violate any of the laws of nature or of family.
I wanted to find out how the authority of the President would vary from that of the Governor General and what would be the powers of the Prime Minister, the Attorney General, the Director of Public Prosecution, the Auditor General, the Defence Force, etc.
Unfortunately, no one is able to tell me.
Some people believe that Senator Caswell Franklyn was not in order when he questioned the process by which our President of Republic Barbados was being elected.
Senator Franklyn could not readily identify any laws governing the proceedings and therefore the result was chaos and rampant disorder.
Whenever we want to keep order, we assign laws to the process. Our country is a country of laws and ideals, a country of order, and we must not change that. The key to success in a nation is submission to law. The key to failure is disobedience to law. Where there is no law there is no sin.
What is important is that the Republican status still have to be delivered and it seems to me that majority of the electorate agrees. Government should abrogate unilateral responsibility for its implementation and invite full and comprehensive participation in the process. The proposed changes to the constitution should be in the hearts of Barbadians already.