AS A STATEMENT DESCRIPTIVE of current affairs in local politics, your independent political correspondent’s caption ‘No Natural Justice In Politics (Sunday Sun, November 29, 2015, Page 21A) is defensible. As a general appraisal, however, it is misleading.
According to the Administrative Justice Act Cap 109 B of the Laws of Barbados at 16(1) (a), the law relating to natural justice applies to any person or body refusing, modifying or revoking any licence, permission, qualification or authority or imposing any penalty under powers conferred by any enactment.
(2) This section does not restrict the application of the law relating to natural justice in any other case.
Political parties have no standing in Parliament. The Leader of the Opposition is the member of the Assembly who appears best able to command the support of those who did not support the appointment of the prime ministrer as a majority, or who commands the largest single group of such persons who are prepared to support one leader.
Any Leader of Opposition is skating on very thin ice who believes that he appoints the supporters he commands. It is indeed his supporters who appoint him and he retains his office only as long as they retain their confidence in him. The removal of a “party whip” from a member of the House does nothing to his privileges as a member or future candidate for election.
The improper conduct of any tribunal is subject to redress on grounds of withholding the application of the principles of natural justice, not least of which is the absence of bias and the right of the accused to be heard by impartial adjudicators.
In the interest of the preservation of the system of representative parliamentary democracy itself in Barbados on the eve of the golden anniversary of national sovereignty, a number of shibboleths must be removed, not the least of which is the predominance of party politics in the DNA of the elector.
– Leonard St Hill
