The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Philip “Brave” Davis said the time has come to review how the Department of Immigration exercises discretion.

In a video played during yesterday’s Office of the Prime Minister briefing, Mr Davis said immigration processes and procedures will be reviewed to see what needs to be tweaked.

“As you may be aware or many persons might be aware, there are a number of discretionary decisions that are made in the immigration department from the immigration officer that is going to decide where to land the person or not right up to the decision making whether a work permit should be granted, whether status should be granted,” he said.

Immigration Minister Alfred Sears said on Wednesday that a commission that Mr Davis established to review how immigration decisions are made comprises former Education Director Marcellus Taylor, former Royal Bahamas Defence Force Commodore Clifford Scavella and attorney Alexandria Hall.

Mr Davis revealed the commission would be formed earlier this summer after Free National Movement leader Michael Pintard leaked documents showing senior immigration officials were concerned with former Immigration Minister Keith Bell’s alleged interference in their work.

Mr Davis said in yesterday’s video message: “We do feel that the time has come for us to review all of the legislation that attends to immigration matters to ensure it is modernised and we want some recommendations from this commission to assist us in that endeavour and, more importantly, to continually to update and report to the minister on matters daily that they think needs to be brought to the attention for quick action and or reaction.”

Ms Hall, the commission chair, said the review will take a “significant amount of time”, and appointees will report to the minister of immigration regularly.

“To the prime minister’s point in terms of modernisation, we all know from our personal experiences that there are issues with the Immigration Act as drafted because there are gaps,” she said.

She said they will consider how to make the country more attractive for people to move here.

She couldn’t say how long it would take to produce a report.

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to give some preliminary updates to the minister before the end of the year,” she said.

“But you’re talking about looking at processes, changing processes, amending legislation. This isn’t work that’s going to be done quickly.”

She said the minister will decide if their report will be publicised.

Mr Pintard said yesterday that the commission’s remit does not move the “needle in any appreciable way in the right direction”.

He said Mr Davis seems overly concerned with confidentiality.

He also said the problems with Mr Bell’s alleged actions don’t relate to a minister’s discretionary powers.

“We do not doubt that there may be some categories of decisions where, depending on where you stand in the hierarchy of government, you may have discretion,” he said.

“What we did was cite instances where there is no wiggle room for discretion in case the prime minister wishes to be cute and suggest that several of the egregious, unethical, illegal decisions by the minister falls within the parameters of discretionary power.”