Reform of Caribbean constitutions necessary and urgent, says panelists

True constitutional reform will come with certain conditions such as term limits on the prime minister and set election dates.

This was the view shared by panelists during a recent University of the West Indies (UWI) townhall meeting, held under the theme Constitutional Reform: Does the Westminster Model centralise too much power in the hands of too few?

Stating that having too much power concentrated in the hands of too few was “dangerous and unconstitutional”, Grenadian politician and lawyer Dr Francis Alexis Q.C. said completely moving away from the Westminster system would require a few actions.

He said there needed to be term limits on the head of government.

“You cannot sustain an arrangement in which term after term one person is continuing to be the prime minister. That is unhealthy.

“Then there is the level of fixed term on Parliament, where you have the prime minister walking around with the date for the election in his back pocket. That has to be moved away from. All the people must know, generally speaking, that elections will be called on the fifth anniversary of the last election,” said Alexis.

“Then there is the question of recall of parliamentarians who are not serving any useful purpose. Be careful, because recall can be used by the political party in office to march people into control, even their own members of parliament . . . So be careful with the system of recall, it can be used very much as a mechanism for stifling individual thinking in the party,” he warned.

“I am saying we must go into constitutional reform but we must guard against using constitutional reform as a means of further entrenching the establishment, meaning the political party ruling the day,” he explained.

He lauded Barbados for its decision to become a republic in November last year, saying this was “a pre-condition” to further proper constitutional development.

St Lucia-based attorney-at-law David Cox pointed to the need for revolutionary constitutional change across the region in order to not have too much power in the hands of a few.

He said while some countries have been engaging in “tweaking” of their constitution as a form of “fixing problems” that come up over the years, it was a “radical revolutionary change” that was needed.

“It is about re-organizing the relationship of the citizen to the state and vice versa. It is about rebalancing power towards people and away from structures and institutions in a manner that make those institutions more accountable and transparent and also more representative of people,” said Cox.

He also noted that “The act of becoming a republic or repatriating your constitution so that it derives it legal authority from an act of a local parliament may be symbolically important or politically revolutionary, [but] these acts don’t fundamentally change the balance of power between the citizen and the state.”

Cox agreed there should be fixed election dates and term limits, but also warned of the power that the constitution gave to the Cabinet.

“Think about the kinds of things a Caribbean cabinet can do. It can take your land and give to a developer for nothing and pay you back when they believe it is necessary. They can sell patrimony . . . The point I am making is that Caribbean parliaments exercise huge, overwhelming, incredible power and authority which has very few structural restraints,” said Cox.

Describing the current Westminster model of constitutional democracy as “overwhelmingly dangerous and frightening”, Cox said there was an “irresponsible level of centralisation of executive authority”.

“The problem with our constitution is that it gives such overwhelming authority to political elites, in this case, the Cabinet of ministers. I put it to you that our system of government looks more like monarchy than it does real democracy . . . The problem is that our constitutions don’t create sufficient checks and balances for structures and restraints on the expression of formal political authority,” said Cox.

“The notion of government of the people, by the people, for the people, is actually a notion that is arguably under attack and has been under attack since before independence,” he added.

Pointing out that constitutional reform was urgent, he stressed that the purpose of such should be about “re-distributing power” to make government more accountable to the public.

“Put simply, we have inherited a system of government in the region where we have given too much power to too few. This system of government does not create or establish sufficient checks and balances over this small group and it invariably leads to poor governance,” he argued.

He said the changes should go beyond those made to institutions and structures, and should included a change in culture.

However, Cox said “One of the reasons we have failed so often in so many places is that it is difficult to persuade people to change something they don’t care enough about.

“This lack of concern is the real impediment to constitutional change, whether that change is merely for purposes of tweaking or revolutionary transformation of democratic systems. After all, why should any man or woman try to change something that they do not value?” he said.
marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb