Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister Kerrie Symmonds has stoutly defended Prime Minister Mia Mottley, totally dismissing contentions by Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne of dictatorial actions by the country’s leader.
In fact, as the House of Assembly debated a resolution to take note of the report by the Parliamentary Reform Commission (PRC) on Tuesday, the St James Central Member of Parliament challenged Thorne to identify which powers the prime minister holds that should be eliminated or diminished.
Attacking Thorne and branding his contribution to the debate which started a week ago as “sophistry”, Symmonds insisted that Barbados was not run by “decrees” or “executive orders” but instead has to follow long established procedures.
“Presidents of the United States, Sir, have the capacity to issue what they call an executive order . . . . I, as President of the United States, on day number one of my tenure, can issue 21 executive orders gutting previously legislated climate policy of the country, gutting and destroying previously legislated and enacted legislation on the rights of immigrants in the country, gutting the rights of people who previously benefited under law and decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States with respect to abortion and on and on and on.
“After all the long talk . . . of the leader of the opposition, you can’t get around the fact that no prime minister of this country, including this one, can come to this place or any other place and issue a decree. There’s no government by executive order in Barbados,” the senior minister told the Lower Chamber.
In a fiery contribution to the debate, Symmonds accused Thorne of being dismissive of the PRC’s work.
“To set up a construct which says, oh, the work of the commission is a waste of time because we don’t have a Republican constitution and there is a mass dictatorship in the country, Mr Speaker, Sir, what is that?” he challenged.
He insisted that many of the actions of the prime minister required the “passage of law” and there was an established principle of “separation of powers” between the executive and the legislature.
At the same time, the St James Central MP conceded there was room for discussion on whether the executive is too closely fused to the legislature.
However, he insisted, “you cannot sensibly, in my judgement, rest an argument on those foundations that the leader of the opposition sought to rest it on. And if there was merit in that which he was alleging, then he would have used the opportunity to do the essentials, not come to the party, sit at the bar stool at the party, and offer only froth, but not any beer.”
He went further, demanding that Thorne show “where there ought to be restrictions or removals of powers currently existing in the Office of the Prime Minister of Barbados”.
“But if you do not come armed with intelligent arguments about where there is excessive power . . . in the Office of the Prime Minister and its capacity to wield power, but you only use your argument as a shield or an umbrella under which to shelter yourself while you hurl innuendo across the aisle, then you have not done anything useful in this debate.” (IMC1)
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