The runoff system included in the Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2014 came from public consultations, Government Senator Garvin Nicholas said yesterday.He was responding in the Senate to Opposition claims and comments from Independent Senators there were no public discussions on Government's runoff proposal.
He said after the Constitution Reform Commission's report on December 27, 2013, refinement consultations were held between February 10 and 19 of this year at the University of the West Indies, Chaguanas Regional Corporation, Signal Hill Secondary and at the Paria Suites Hotel, La Romain.
After those consultations, he said, the CRC produced another report, titled Constitution Reform Commission, Post Script to the Reform Commission (Addendum), which was dated July 18, 2014. The documents bore none of the commissioners' signatures, he said.Included in paragraph 45 of the addendum was the commission's request to Government to make the current first past-the-post system fairer.
Reading from the document, Nicholas said: "The commission stands by its recommendation for the retention of the first-past-the-post system for the House of Representatives."However, any opportunity to make the first-past-the-post system for election to the House of Representatives a fairer one will be welcomed by the commission."Nicholas said the CRC was set up to gather the broad views of the public and after the first report was done they went back to consult with the people, thus leading to the addendum.
He said the Opposition PNM had tried to demonise the document but it was done through due process. He denied that it was deemed private and confidential and only for the Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar's viewing.The addendum, Nicholas added, recommended that the proposed right to recall and term limits for prime ministers be brought forward quickly, as it only required a simple majority.
"The document was deemed a philosophical approach and it really just gives a broad feel for what people were thinking. There were no concrete recommendations safe to say."I quote from paragraph 290, 'As a commission, we listened and we debated. The end product is now before you for your further consideration. We have done our job and the next step is left to our parliamentarians and the population,'" he noted.
Despite Government's refusal to postpone voting on the bill to have further consultations, Nicholas said they were not bound by the report as no government could satisfy all citizens' wants.
Cudjoe unconvinced
Responding to Nicholas' contribution, Opposition Senator Shamfa Cudjoe questioned why the addendum was not signed, as she recalled commissioners Dr Merle Hodge and Carlos Dillon's claims they were not party to that part of the report.She said the original report from the first set of public consultations had no record of a runoff ballot and asked how it came into the refinement consultation.
"The report that was signed came in December 2013 and the addendum came seven months later and we are not to be concerned when there are two members of the commission that signed to the original report and could state that 'we have never seen this addendum, we don't know where this thing came from?'"Cudjoe said the runoff proposal was not meant to empower the people but to empower the People's Partnership in the upcoming election.