Parliament on Monday gave final approval to amendments to the Constitution of Barbados, making three landmark changes to parliamentary order that senators defended as “future-forward” reforms to strengthen democracy.
The amendments allow for the election of an independent Speaker of the House of Assembly who is not a member of either chamber, permit ministers to address a chamber of which they are not members on issues within their portfolios, and enable the attorney general to address either the House or Senate on any issue.
Senator Lisa Cummins, the minister for business and energy, said the constitutional amendments would ensure elected MPs could fully represent their constituents.
Highlighting the introduction of an independent speaker, Senator Cummins said: “Here where we’re talking about they shall be deemed in addition to the 30 members, that simply now [makes] a substantive shift to move from 30 members of the [House of Assembly] to 31 by having an independent speaker not drawn from the elected members of Parliament.”
Senator Cummins noted that the current composition of Parliament, where government senators are appointed by the prime minister, independent senators by the president, and opposition senators by the leader of the opposition, remains unfit for purpose in a modern society.
She explained that talks have been ongoing since 2018 and were examined extensively by the Parliamentary Reform Commission.
The amendments were contained in a minority report of the Parliamentary Reform Commission but were not among the proposals from the constitutional reform commission led by retired judge Christopher Blackman.
A major concern the amendment seeks to address, as Senator Cummins described it, is a limitation placed on elected members of parliament who are chosen as speaker.
“Currently, the speaker cannot at any time speak in Parliament on behalf of the constituency they were elected to represent,” she said. “They have to depend on someone else to carry a brief for them, and that is perhaps one of the most challenging principles that this amendment is attempting to navigate.”
She questioned the fairness of a system where a constituency elects a representative who is then unable to speak on its behalf.
“How do you have a constituency representative sitting in the other place and not able to speak on behalf of the constituency that elected them?” she asked.
Senator Cummins added: “The person who was elected must speak on behalf of their constituents, and the person who sits in the chair must not be elected on behalf of constituents,” she said, adding that voters should have the comfort of knowing their representative can fully advocate for them once they “mount the stairs to enter Parliament”.
She also pointed to international best practice, saying the proposals were informed by comparative research across the Commonwealth.
“We looked at what was happening in places like the UK, Australia, Canada, India, and the UK specifically, and where some of the potential opportunities are,” she said. “What we also found across the Commonwealth, including in the Caribbean, is that Barbados with these amendments is on the right policy path.”
While acknowledging that parliamentary reform is still a work in progress, Cummins stressed that the direction being taken was the correct one.
“Have we completed all of it? Not yet. But Rome was not built in a day, and we will continue the process,” she said, adding that the country must be allowed to “continue to evolve”.
She described the appointment of an independent speaker as a “future-forward recommendation”, along with measures to preserve the rights and tenure of elected MPs, ensure independence in setting parliamentary remuneration, and expand the right of audience for ministers.
“Allowing for the right of audience for ministers enriches our debate, enhances our contribution to the substantive matters of policy development and legislative reform, and it adds value to the robust debate that already takes place in these honourable chambers,” Sen. Cummins said. (SB)
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