by Rick Lowe

After encouraging the Bahamian public to vote against the reforms in the 2002 Constitutional Referendum, Prime Minister Christie informs the Bahamian people that the PLP were not opposed to any issue on the referendum. After agreeing to the terms in Parliament he decided his party should not support the changes because the Church was not consulted.

Here's his specific comment:

“Now the by-product of it was that (the referendum) wasn’t passed, but we were never motivated against any issue on the referendum, we were motivated against the fact that it was being imposed upon people against their will.” (PM Defends PLP's Blocking of Previous Referendum, The Tribune, July 27, 2012).

The 2002 proposals were:

• the removal of gender discrimination from the constitution
• the creation of a national commission to monitor the standards of teachers
• the creation of an independent parliamentary commissioner
• the creation of an independent election boundaries commission
• the increase of the retirement ages of judges from 60 to 65 (or 68 to 72 for appellate judges)

In a previous blog we suggested the following questions should also be tabled if the question of a Constitutional Referendum ever came up again:

1. Should the Prime Minister be subject to term limits of 10 years?
2. Should Members of Parliament be subject to term limits of 15 years?
3. Should a Constitutional limit for the National Debt and Budget Deficits be set? Maybe as a percentage of GDP.
4. Should it limit the number of Cabinet Ministers and Members of Parliament based on the population count?
5. Should it ensure that Cabinet Ministers, Members of Parliament, and various Chairmen appointed give reasons when a request or license application is denied?
6. Should it enshrine a formal consultative process for new legislation to ensure checks and balances?
7. Should it ensure that any law passed by Parliament automatically applies to Government, its agencies, departments and corporations as it applies to the country’s citizens and businesses?
8. Should real Local Government be implemented for New Providence and the Family Islands?

Although back then I voted for some proposals and against others, I would vote yes on all items today. I remember voting against the provision to raise the age limit for judges, we had Bahamians that might jump at the opportunity to be judges, but in hindsight it appears I was wrong to do so.

One minute the PLP want you to vote against the referendum because they were bundled (you had to vote for all or none), the next there was something sinister afoot. Now it's because the Church was not consulted.

The issues raised had/have nothing to do with one's spiritual well being, for the church to be concerned. It's about equality before the law and strengthening our democracy.

One assumes the church is now in favour of gambling in its totality, because the government is promising to proceed with that referendum too, but that's a subject for another day.

The politics of issues like this get so tiring. Whatever happened to statesmanship?