Minister of Home Affairs and Information Wilfred Abrahams says the disparity in ages at which some acts are allowed under the country’s legislation needs to be urgently rectified.
Suggesting that the decision to reduce the age at which an individual can serve in either the House of Assembly or the Senate from 21 to 18 was a step in the right direction, Abrahams said on Tuesday there were several anomalies that needed to be addressed.
“We need to decide firmly what is the age at which we accept somebody as an adult,” he said during debate on the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2022.
“We have an anomalous situation in Barbados where there are many different ages for many different things. The age of criminal responsibility at one time was 12 years old. Then there’s that grey area between 14 and 16 for a young person’s defence to a charge of rape. There’s the 16 for the age of consent, where you can consent to have sex but you can’t get married until you’re 18 years old. You can get married at 18 years old but at one point in time you still couldn’t inherit property until you’re 21,” said the attorney-at-law, questioning “where is the magic of the age of 21?”
“These ages fluctuate. There are too many ages and age disparities being juggled in our legislation and we need to bring it all in line.”
Abrahams said the change to the age requirement for holding seats in the Senate and the House of Assembly corrected a “flaw in the Constitution that we have identified that needs to be rectified now”.
He agreed with Attorney General Dale Marshall, who introduced the Bill, that there was no need to wait for a new Constitution to be drafted to correct this shortcoming.
The Christ Church East MP spoke glowingly of 18-year-old Khaleel Kothdiwala to whom Prime Minister Mia Mottley has proposed to give a Senate seat once the constitutional amendment is passed.
Abrahams said this “exceptional young person” who spoke on his platform during the recent election campaign deserved the opportunity to serve.
“The worst thing we can do is stymie people from reaching their full potential when they have something to offer. For us to deny young persons who have something to offer the chance to offer it at the highest level where they are otherwise qualified to do so, except by age, is to deny them and probably to hinder us and our progress as a country,” he argued.
Abrahams also supported the other amendment that would give the party with the second-highest votes the opportunity to appoint two Senators when there is no Leader of the Opposition.
He said it would perhaps force the Democratic Labour Party (DLP), the Barbados Labour Party’s closest rivals in the last polls, to “get their house in order a lot faster than they contemplated that they would have to do”.
“But if, Sir, then they can’t do that then maybe they don’t qualify to be the opposition in Barbados, and the Constitution then makes provision for somebody else who is willing to step into the breach to put up their hand and say ‘choose me’,” he contended. (DP)
