Electing a Senate with powers to keep watch over the policies, plans and programmes of the Executive/Cabinet, a Senate to reflect the differing interests and groups of the society, one to bring independence and reflective thinking to legislation produced by the Executive and the public service and a Senate to perform the role of scrutiny over the functioning of state institutions seems to be desperately needed.
The difference in the instance of the passage of legislation is that whereas at present the Executive fashions the legislation and by reason of its built-in majority in the Parliament passes the bills into law, it will be a Senate comprised differently and the House of Representatives, looking after the interests of constituents, which will have the power to effectively scrutinise draft bills to determine whether they constitute good law.
To reiterate, this is a series of articles which is teasing out possibilities to achieve the kind of fundamental constitutional reform required. The series is advocating the attenuation of the total state and governmental power now exercised by the Prime Minister and the Executive. That power will have to be re-distributed to other institutions while ensuring that the electorate retains a meaningful say in its affairs between general elections.
http://www.guardian.co.tt/digital/new-members