The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

THE CONSTITUTIONAL Commission yesterday recommended that the Privy Council remain the final court of appeal for the Bahamas. However, it suggested that the government should amend the Constitution to “tie the foreign court’s hands” on the death penalty issue.

Committee Chairman Sean McWeeney said the commission does not recommend the replacing of the Privy Council as the final court of appeal at this moment, not withstanding the large public support it attracted. However, he said, the government must prepare itself to eventually separate from the Privy Council as it may be forced upon the country in due course by the United Kingdom.

“To ensure that the Executive is able to carry out the death penalty in a case which the courts have determined would warrant it, the Government may consider amending the Constitution, not ordinary legislation, to prevent challenges to the death penalty. 

“The death penalty will remain and we continue to follow the Privy Council but we can try to tie their hands.

“You know the Privy Council has essentially ruled that you can only hang someone when it is ‘the worst of the worst’ situation. One of the Constitutional Amendments could be to define what is meant by ‘the worst of the worst’, so it is taken out of the Privy Council’s hands to define it. The second thing is the Privy Council also said that if a person is kept on death row for an inordinate period of time, again you cannot carry out the death penally, again you can override that by a constitutional amendment,” he said.

“While the commission does not recommend the abolition of the Privy Council at this time, we see it as an inevitable event that must take place at some determined time in the future in the continuing journey towards full sovereignty. We must also be cognizant that the imperative for this change might be driven by changes emanating from the United Kingdom.”

The Commission also recommended no change to the Office of the Governor General as the representative of the Queen as Head of State. However, Mr McWeeney said they are of the view that it will be inevitable in order to achieve constitutional evolution to full sovereignty and independence. He said we cannot allow ourselves the “delusional luxury” of assuming that the Queen or King of England will forever be available to the Sovereign of the Bahamas.

“The Government must embark on a process of public education to prepare the public for a possible change to a republican form of Government at some point in the future,” he said.

“Should such a change be made, it would require amendments to the constitution providing for a non-executive national President, as Head of State, to discharge the functions formerly vested in the Governor General, with the Prime Minister and Cabinet continuing to exercise executive powers.”

To remove all doubt, the Commission also recommended that the constitution be amended to specify that the Governor General must be a Bahamian citizen.