Richard Lord

Mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives should not be el­i­gi­ble for ap­point­ment as min­is­ters. This was one of the ma­jor rec­om­men­da­tions in the re­port by the Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed Con­sti­tu­tion Com­mis­sion, dat­ed De­cem­ber 27, 2013. The re­port is al­so propos­ing that on­ly sen­a­tors should be ap­point­ed min­is­ters.The re­port is ex­pect­ed to be dis­cussed dur­ing next week's Cab­i­net meet­ing at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair.

The com­mis­sion was chaired by Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har.The 47-page doc­u­ment ad­dress­es is­sues such as the fun­da­men­tal rights and free­doms, the head of State, re­form­ing of the Par­lia­ment, the Ex­ec­u­tive, the Pub­lic Ser­vice, in­sti­tu­tions and process scruti­ny and the ju­di­cia­ry.

The re­port said un­der the par­lia­men­tary sys­tem, the Ex­ec­u­tive dom­i­nates the Leg­is­la­ture, while in a pres­i­den­tial mod­el, there is gen­uine sep­a­ra­tion be­tween the two, and the method of en­gage­ment is based on con­sen­sus as op­posed to dom­i­na­tion. It said the sys­tem which re­tains the pres­i­den­cy in its cur­rent form, while bring­ing re­forms to oth­er of­fices and struc­tures, would con­tin­ue to pro­vide the po­lit­i­cal process with an im­par­tial ar­biter. It makes no clear rec­om­men­da­tion on the is­sue of an ex­ec­u­tive pres­i­dent.

Deal­ing with the Par­lia­ment, the re­port said both the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate should have the same num­ber of mem­bers. The House has 41 MPs cur­rent­ly and the Sen­ate, 31.The doc­u­ments is propos­ing that MPs "should fo­cus ex­clu­sive­ly on their con­stituen­cy du­ties and the du­ties of scruti­ny as mem­bers of com­mit­tees that over­see the Ex­ec­u­tive branch of gov­ern­ment."

While the re­port rec­om­mends no change to the process for ap­point­ment of in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors by the pres­i­dent, it said the re­main­ing sen­a­tors should be elect­ed by the Hare method of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion.The re­port said dur­ing gen­er­al elec­tions "each vot­er should be en­ti­tled to two votes, one for his/her MP and the oth­er to elect sen­a­tors."

An­oth­er ma­jor pro­pos­al was for the Cab­i­net to com­prise the prime min­is­ter, deputy prime min­is­ter, at­tor­ney gen­er­al, fi­nance min­is­ter, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter "and a lim­it­ed num­ber of oth­er min­is­ters drawn from the elect­ed sen­a­tors."The deputy prime min­is­ter is to be ap­point­ed by the pres­i­dent, on the ad­vice of the prime min­is­ter, from the elect­ed sen­a­tors.

It al­so rec­om­mends a change of name for the post of Leader of the Op­po­si­tion. The name mi­nor­i­ty leader is pro­posed by the com­mis­sion. In seek­ing to ad­vance the rea­son for the name change the doc­u­ment said the change was need­ed "in light of the fact that the ti­tle does not lend it­self to seek­ing con­sen­sus, but rather, to a stance of be­ing per­ma­nent­ly op­posed to the Gov­ern­ment."

The com­mis­sion re­port not­ed the pro­posed change to mi­nor­i­ty leader was nec­es­sary "to cap­ture the fact that the of­fice is not of the same po­lit­i­cal per­sua­sion as the prime min­is­ter, and does not lead a ma­jor­i­ty of sen­a­tors."

The Ra­mad­har Con­sti­tu­tion Com­mis­sion al­so rec­om­mends that the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) "shall re­port to the pres­i­dent on an an­nu­al ba­sis on his per­for­mance." It said the DPP's re­port "shall in­clude sta­tis­tics in such form and in such de­tail as may be pre­scribed." The re­port should be laid in the House.

A new post of con­trac­tor gen­er­al should be cre­at­ed, the re­port sug­gest­ed. The con­trac­tor gen­er­al would be re­quired to sub­mit an­nu­al and spe­cial re­ports to the Par­lia­ment for "con­sid­er­a­tion and in­ves­ti­ga­tion" the doc­u­ment added.On the is­sue of hav­ing the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice re­place the Lon­don-based Privy Coun­cil as the fi­nal court of ap­peal, the re­port said a na­tion­al ref­er­en­dum should be held to de­cide the way for­ward.

It al­so rec­om­mend­ed that the mem­ber­ship of the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion should be broad­ened to in­clude a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion, who would be ap­point­ed for a three-year pe­ri­od by the pres­i­dent af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the coun­cil of the Law As­so­ci­a­tion.

Deal­ing with in­sti­tu­tions and process­es of scruti­ny, the re­port said: "No min­is­ter should be el­i­gi­ble to sit on the Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee (PAC) or the Pub­lic Ac­counts En­ter­pris­es Com­mit­tee (PAEC), and ref­er­ences to the Op­po­si­tion should be re­moved from the Con­sti­tu­tion with re­gard to the chair­man­ship of the PAC and PAEC."