Attorney General Dale Marshall said he cannot give an end date for the country’s constitutional reform, started in 2021.
He was responding to a question by Leader of the Opposition Ralph Thorne during debate on the Appropriation Bill, 2025 (Estimates 2025-2026) yesterday in the House of Assembly.
Marshall and representatives from the various departments under his office were in the Well of the House for the second day fielding questions.
“I cannot answer [Thorne’s] question. I have no provision in my Estimates for that work, that work, while it was managed by the Office of the Attorney General, was funded by the Cabinet Office, not by the Office of the Attorney General. So while the Honourable Member is able to ask whatever question he wishes, I would suggest to him that the question that he’s posed is really meant for elsewhere and perhaps for a different occasion,” Marshall stated.
Journey
He explained that the work of the Constitution Reform Commission is finished and it was now functus (served its purpose).
“But we now have to engage in the exercise as a Government in examining the report of the Commission, having further consultations, and seeing if that draft Constitution, as presented, reflects where Barbados is to go.
“I cannot tell . . . when that will happen, because [the Leader of the Opposition] . . . should recognise that there is still a significant amount of the journey left to be to be taken,” Marshall said.
The Attorney General said that a constitution was nothing more than a set of fundamental laws governing the affairs of a state, often concerning matters as to how the state relates to its citizens.
“A republican constitution is a constitution which does exactly the same thing, but provides for the head of state to be a president. Barbados has a constitution that provides for its head of state to be the president. Barbados has a constitution that satisfies all of
the recognised norms that one expects to see in constitutions. It provides for a parliament, it provides for an executive. It provides what are called Bill of Rights. It provides for a judiciary. Barbados has a constitution that regulates the affairs of the government and its citizenry, as I address you in this Chamber, the extent to which a person may consider our constitution to be deficient is a very subjective thing,” he stated.
Government, Marshall said, had decided to examine the Constitution to see whether there were any new norms emerging that ought to be taken into account, hence the commission was established.
The MP for St Joseph stated that the commission heard from several people including the Leader of the Opposition whom he said participated, “though, I suspect, rather half heartedly, in the deliberations”.
Waste of time
He said upon Thorne assuming his present role in February 2024 the life of the commission had to be extended to accommodate him, even though the Democratic Labour Party, which he now leads, had already been consulted. There was no Leader of the Opposition at the time.
The country received the report of the Commission in January, said Marshall and since it has been made available some people have had opined that it was “foolishness’, “a waste of time” or it “didn’t go far enough”.
(AC)
