Integrity Bill needs further revision – DLP

By Jenique Belgrave

Go back to the drawing board!

This was the strong message from President of the Democratic Labour Party Dr. Ronnie Yearwood to the Government of Barbados as he heaped criticism on the revised Integrity in Public Life Bill.

The bill was laid in Parliament earlier this week after the first attempt failed to gain the two-thirds majority in the Senate.

Speaking to the media at the DLP’s George Street headquarters this morning, Dr Yearwood identified what he considered to be several failings of the legislation, including the set up for the selection of members of the six-member Integrity Commission, the handling of reports from that group and its funding.

Calling the appointment of the members a “bug bear” which required recommendations from the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader in such circumstances when there is no Opposition Party. He said this would give the Prime Minister the opportunity to select the majority of the commissioners.

“What should really be happening is that those commissioners should be selected by the President at his or her own discretion, so that you remove the political operatives from any place within this legislation,” he advised.

Citing the Commonwealth model as an example of how reports from the commission should be handled, Yearwood said these should be sent to the Speaker of the House, followed by the Parliament and not to the Prime Minister as proposed by the bill.

“If you are talking about transparency and you are talking about integrity, your report should go directly to Parliament or if you want them to go in conjunction to the President and Parliament. You cannot be sending reports to the Prime Minister who is supposed to be covered by the very Integrity Bill. That can’t make sense as the Prime Minister then has the ability to see a report before Parliament sees the report,” the attorney-at-law argued.

In addition, he said funding for the commission should not be the responsibility of the Minister of Finance, but should come from an independent trust fund run by a board of advisors.

“The commission is supposed to be monitoring the Minister of Finance. You cannot monitor who is paying you,” he stressed.

The law lecturer also disagreed with the decision outlined by Attorney General Dale Marshall to exempt top judicial officials from the proposed law while requiring those newly-hired to comply.

Saying Barbados was not in the same situation as Trinidad, upon whose law the exemption is modeled, Yearwood said in its current state the bill would create a two-tier system, where some persons would have to make declarations of their assets while others would not while operating under the same system.

“If I was a new judge coming into the system, I would not be happy that other judges like me, getting the same compensation and the same remuneration are being excluded from a bill that should cover everyone in public life. If you are in public life, you are in public life and therefore the Attorney General and the Barbados government need to go back to the drawing board and fix that because it does not sit well with the public. You cannot have exclusions for those who are supposed to be in this bill,” he stressed.

Making it clear that his party was in support of the idea, concept and execution of such a bill, Yearwood insisted that it needed to be done correctly. 

jeniquebelgrave@barbadostoday.bb