The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

MARCO City MP Gregory Moss yesterday suggested that the government further postpone the constitutional referendum until it resolves major issues that are likely to polarise the vote.

Mr Moss said the government’s approach to constitutional reform under both the Free National Movement and the Progressive Liberal Party was “misguided”, adding that he felt the scope should be more comprehensive to address the need for a clear separation of power, term limits, and freedom of information.

He added that voters angered by the government’s actions to legalise web shops and introduce value added tax (VAT) were likely to vote against a constitutional referendum.

“I’m not convinced that this is the best time to consider any constitutional amendments,” he said, “because there are other issues which have so polarised people and so adversely affected the people that it is difficult to believe that the people will vote in a dispassionate way on a constitutional amendment.”

Mr Moss added: “I think we should be talking about all-encompassing constitutional reform not a hodgepodge of selective issues from time to time. And those reforms should come after we have dealt with the pressing issues in this country such as crime, such as the economy, such as jobs, housing, migration, those types of things because you’re asking people to think about very important weighty national issues embedded in constitutional reform while they themselves are not settled in their own lives socially, economically, or otherwise.

“You really ought to make sure that the country is safe, that the people are safe before you move on to these issues.”

Last week, Mr Moss announced that he would openly campaign against constitutional amendment bills two and four if they are passed in the House of Assembly. Mr Moss said he did not think the bills would be passed because there was not a sufficient majority.

Bill two would allow a Bahamian woman who marries a foreign man to secure for him the same access to Bahamian citizenship that a Bahamian man has always enjoyed under the Constitution in relation to his foreign wife. Bill four seeks to end discrimination based on sex.

While he is fundamentally against the transference of citizenship by marriage, Mr Moss said he would accept the fourth bill if a provision were added to ban same sex marriage.

He also questioned why the Constitutional Commission had backed away from its initial recommendation that such a provision be included as a safeguard against judicial intervention.

Constitutional Commission Chairman Sean McWeeney told The Tribune last week that there was no need for any further changes to the fourth bill. Mr McWeeney said the commission had obtained the legal opinion of a “preeminent constitutional scholar and academic in the Commonwealth” over the controversial bill, and was satisfied that concerns were “totally misconceived”. He declined to reveal the name of the scholar, whom he said was contracted through the Attorney General’s Office.

Mr McWeeney confirmed that the commission was aware of Mr Moss’ position and had sent the Marco City MP a copy of the legal opinion.

“It’s a free society,” Mr McWeeney said, “he’s a member of a political party, I’m sure he has factored that in. We live in a robust democracy.

“We are proposing the amendment originally advanced by Dr Myles Munroe, there is presently no need for amendments for bill number four. We are very comfortable.”

Commenting on the opposition to the bills, Mr McWeeney said: “I’m not terribly surprised, we saw a lot of it at the town meetings before the commission reported. In many respects, we’re still a very underdeveloped society, which are sort of taken for granted in first world societies. Honest men can have honest differences, you’re not going to have 100 per cent support.”

The anticipated constitutional referendum was postponed until 2015 from November 6, 2014 because of confusion and push back to the bills.

Prime Minister Perry Christie had initially set the constitutional referendum for June 2013, but later changed the date to November 2013. He later said the constitutional bills would be brought to Parliament before the end of 2013 and passed in February 2014.

He also said the referendum would take place before the end of June 2014. Those deadlines were not met and in July last year Mr Christie announced the vote would take place in November 2014.

Yesterday, Mr Moss said the Constitution sorely lacked checks and balances that would prevent the monopolisation of the power of the state.

Mr Moss said: “The appointment of a chief judge are constitutional issues, the appointment of everyone to the Judicial Legal Services Commission by the prime minister alone, the appointment of everyone to the civil service commission by the prime minister alone, the appointment of a chief justice, members of the court of appeal.

“The parcelling out of so much favour in this country,” he said, “this isn’t a statement against any particular prime minister, this is a statement against the Constitution and the system that we labour under right now and the point that we need to get to the point where there are checks and balances.”

He added: “Where we get to the point where we are able to have a proper contest of our ideas within a functioning democracy and not where we have even elected members of parliament, representatives of the government, being threatened with adverse consequences simply for speaking their mind.”