Richard Lord

Cit­i­zens will have to vote twice in the next gen­er­al elec­tion, due in 2015, if a rec­om­men­da­tion by the Con­sti­tu­tion Com­mis­sion to have sen­a­tors elect­ed is ap­proved.The com­mis­sion, chaired by Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har, com­plet­ed its re­port on De­cem­ber 27 af­ter months of pub­lic and pri­vate con­sul­ta­tions with stake­hold­ers.The re­port al­so rec­om­mends that the Prime Min­is­ter and Cab­i­net min­is­ters be sen­a­tors, and not MPs.

"If min­is­ters are drawn from the Sen­ate on­ly, and not from the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, this will make the Sen­ate the fo­cus of ex­ec­u­tive pow­er," the re­port said, adding: "...the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives will be­come more ef­fec­tive of its name in re­spect of du­ties to be per­formed by its mem­bers."

The com­mis­sion said the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives could play "a new and en­hanced role of scruti­ny for the Par­lia­ment." It said MPs could ad­dress con­stituen­cy mat­ters there and al­so serve par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tees to keep the Gov­ern­ment in check.On the re­form of Par­lia­ment, the re­port rec­om­mend­ed that sen­a­tors (apart from the nine to be ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent) be elect­ed by a sys­tem of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion us­ing the Hare method; it al­so sug­gest­ed an in­crease by ten in the num­ber of sen­a­tors to 41.

"Each vot­er should be en­ti­tled to two votes, one for his/her MP in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the sec­ond vote for a par­ty list in the Sen­ate," it said.Un­der the pro­posed pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion sys­tem for elect­ing sen­a­tors, the Ra­mad­har Com­mis­sion said each po­lit­i­cal par­ty con­test­ing the elec­tion would present a list of can­di­dates, in­clud­ing its choice for prime min­is­ter.

The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) would in­form the pres­i­dent of the par­ty which gets more than 50 per cent of votes cast; and he will sub­se­quent­ly ap­point the par­ty's prime min­is­te­r­i­al can­di­date as Prime Min­is­ter."If no par­ty list earns such a ma­jor­i­ty of votes, the elect­ed sen­a­tors would choose a prime min­is­ter at their first sit­ting."The re­port said that elec­tion would be presided over by the Sen­ate Pres­i­dent; on­ly prime min­is­te­r­i­al can­di­dates list­ed for the Gen­er­al Elec­tion would be el­i­gi­ble.

If the Sen­ate fails to elect a prime min­is­ter, the re­port said the "Pres­i­dent shall ap­point as Prime Min­is­ter, the per­son whose list earned the largest sin­gle num­ber of votes cast."