A new commission has been created to review the current structure and function of Parliament, with a mandate to provide recommendations on how the governing body could be transformed to better suit the country’s needs.
This announcement was made by Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Dale Marshall during a post-Cabinet press briefing on Friday at Ilaro Court.
Marshall told media personnel that the new Parliamentary Reform Commission (PRC) has the singular focus of examining Parliament as it presently stands, and determining what changes could be implemented to make it better.
“This Parliamentary Reform Commission is not being established for the purpose of looking into terms and conditions of parliamentarians, that is not what it is about. It may consider those issues but this is to review what Parliament is, how it functions, whether or not it can be better made up, whether or not we should have an Upper House or a Lower House, whether or not we should have parliamentarians elected by all of Barbados rather than just constituencies… All of these matters are going to be under the purview of this commission,” he said.
The new commission will be chaired by prominent local attorney and former President of the Senate, Sir Richard Cheltenham. The other members include Sir Roy Trotman as Deputy Chair, Ambassador Elizabeth Thompson; Dr Richard Ishmael, noted cardiologist; Professor Velma Newton, historian and attorney-at-law; William Chandler, columnist along with former Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Democratic Labour Party, Maxine McClean, and Corrie Beckles on behalf of the former Opposition People’s Party for Democracy and Development (PdP).
Marshall stated that the current administration strongly believed that any reform being proposed to parliamentary matters should have the insight of a variety of parties outside of the government.
“In our view, it is important for us that the full panoply of political thinking, political bodies be represented and therefore none of these people is here as a right. We felt that it was impossible for us to look at parliamentary reform without including a nominee of the Democratic Labour Party and without including a nominee from the most recent political party in opposition.”
He added: “The work of this body is expected to be concluded within a relatively short period of time. We are hoping that within six months they will be able to consider all of the issues, have public hearings and submit a report to Cabinet for consideration.”
Marshall stressed, however, that the work being done by this new commission will not take the place of the consultation work being done by the Constitution Reform Commission (CRC), which has, to date, conducted several public hearings.
Though the AG admitted that part of the CRC’s review will include a look into the island’s parliamentary structure, the new PRC will take a more focused approach to the subject.
“We believe that the work of the Parliamentary Reform Commission is much broader than the scope of the constitution, and will complement the work of the Constitution Reform Commission,” he added.
(shamarblunt@barbadostoday.bb)
