Opposition Senator Andre Worrell accused the Mottley administration of failing to deliver on its promise of a new republican constitution four years after Barbados became a republic, saying the country remains governed by an outdated framework being amended “in piecemeal fashion”.
Senator Worrell was speaking in the Senate on the Constitution (Amendment) Bill which seeks to allow for the election of a Speaker of the House of Assembly who is not a member of either chamber, permit ministers to address a House of which they are not members on matters within their portfolios, and enable the attorney general to speak in either House on any matter.
While acknowledging that the constitutional amendments may have merit, Sen. Worrell questioned the broader strategy behind the government’s constitutional reform agenda.
“I think Barbadians are quite tired and weary,” he said, pointing to the fact that Barbados became a republic in 2021 but has yet to see a new republican constitution. He reminded the upper chamber that commissions were established both to draft a new constitution and to reform Parliament, noting that the parliamentary reform report had recently been debated in both chambers.
“Barbadians are becoming weary of this piecemeal approach of amending a constitution which you intend to replace overall,” Sen. Worrell said.
He questioned why, four years after the transition to republican status, a complete constitution has not been presented to the public.
“We may ask the question, what is the difficulty and what is the challenge four years after the fact?” he said, adding that some may argue a republican constitution should have been finalised, vetted and ready “on the same day that you decide to become a republic”.
Sen. Worrell further argued that the government had failed to use its unprecedented parliamentary majority to enact more sweeping and comprehensive reforms.
“Could we not have gone a bit further in holistically looking at the governance structure of this country?” he asked. He noted that the governing party had twice won landslide victories, well beyond the two-thirds majority required to amend the Constitution.
“Could a government not utilise that mandate more effectively and more efficiently to bring about the necessary changes to the constitution?” he questioned.
The opposition lawmaker suggested that past prime ministers, given such overwhelming public support, would have pursued wide-ranging constitutional reforms to address systemic issues across governance.
“I’m certain that if some of our prime ministers in the past had that kind of mandate, there would have been sweeping changes to our constitution,” Worrell said, pointing to concerns such as the effectiveness of the judicial system and whether the education system is “fit for purpose”.
Sen. Worrell also raised concerns about the absence of key pieces of legislation that, he said, Barbadians had long expected to see.
“Barbadians hoped that there would have been integrity legislation on the books of this country that would hold parliamentarians and senior civil servants to account, but to this day there is none,” he said. He also highlighted the lack of freedom of information legislation, arguing that its absence has left the public in the dark on major national expenditures.
“Barbadians would have hoped that there would have been freedom of information legislation… which would allow persons not to be guessing at this stage about what was the true cost of Carifesta.”
(SB)
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