Pbl Constitutional Reform 02 Eng.Pdf
Executive Summary
Chapter I: Westminster in the Caribbean: Viability Past and Present, Prospects for Reform or Radical Change
A. Impetus for Change
B. Governance: The Heart of the Matter
C. The Crucial Role of Civil Society
D. Critiquing Westminster
E. The Power-Sharing Option
F. Reforming Westminster
Chapter II: The Constitutional Reform Process: Commissions, Procedures and the Role of Civil Society
A. Lessons from the Reform Process in Belize
B. The Challenge of Sustaining Civic Action
C. Utilizing New Technologies and the Media
D. A New Emphasis for Constitutional Reform Commissions
Chapter III: Local Government: Decentralization, Citizen Input and Community Action in Governance and Development
A. Citizen-Driven Governance
B. Local Government Reform and Constitutional Reform
Chapter IV: Regional Integration: Small States and Political Sovereignty in a Global Economy
A. Constitutional Requirements of Integration
B. Caribbean Courts of Justice
Chapter V: Summary of Recommendations
A. Proposals for Improving Westminster
B. Proposals for Integrating Civil Society into the Political System
C. Proposals for Strengthening Civil Society in the Constitutional Reform Process and in Governance
D. Proposals with regard to the Constitutional Reform Process
E. Proposals regarding Local Government
F. Proposals regarding Regional Integration
G. Proposals regarding the International Community Executive Summary
By 2001, no fewer than 11 nations of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) had embarked on or were considering reform of their constitutions, and a number of them have asked the Organization of American States (OAS) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for assistance in carrying out the process. To promote a deeper understanding of the trend, to further the effort and to help point a way forward, the OAS Unit for the Promotion of Democracy (UPD), in coordination with the UNDP, organized a conference on “Constitutional Reform in the Caribbean.” Held in Barbados from January 20 to 22, 2002, the gathering constituted part of the OAS "Democratic Forum Series" and was hosted in conjunction with the University of the West Indies (UWI).
The Conference on Constitutional Reform in the Caribbean was not conceived as a mere academic exercise. It was designed as a participatory event including representatives from various sectors of Caribbean society and reflecting different national experiences, and sought to contribute concretely to the current debate in the region regarding the enhancement of democratic governance in the region and the optimal ways to achieve it. The keynote speakers and panelists presented a number of different perspectives in order to give a forthright assessment of the progress, or lack thereof, of the effort to reform Caribbean constitutions and make government more responsive, inclusive and transparent.[1] To ensure a broad range of views, the nearly 60 participants included national leaders, members of parliament, civic organizers, legal experts, members of constitutional reform commissions, scholars, political activists and representatives of international institutions from throughout the English-speaking Caribbean and Suriname. The panel discussions focused on four issues:
• Westminster in the Caribbean – Viability Past and Present, Prospects for Reform or Radical Departure.
• The Constitutional Reform Process – Commissions, Procedures and the Role of Civil Society.
• Local Government – Decentralization, Citizen Input and Community Action in Governance and Development.
• Regional Integration – Small States and Political Sovereignty in a Global Economy.
The organizers of the conference drafted terms of reference that outlined the points of discussion on these themes and posed general questions for participants to address. They noted that the four themes are linked, particularly with regard to the need to enhance the role of civil society in the constitutional reform process, in governance overall and in the regional integration effort.
The conference organizers recognize that the list of topics is not exhaustive, and acknowledge that time limitations did not provide for a complete discussion of all the issues and how they are manifested in the different political contexts of the Caribbean. It is the hope of the organizers, however, that the proceedings of the conference will constitute the beginning of a sustained inter-sectoral debate on the status of constitutional reform and governance issues in the region.
As OAS Secretary General César Gaviria noted in his inaugural remarks, "the OAS [did] not come here with any pre-conceived notions for constitutional reform. We appreciate that the issues are as complex and varied as the countries themselves. By casting our net wide by including many different points of view and encouraging lively discussions we hope to contribute in some small but helpful way.” During the conference, a number of generally shared viewpoints emerged:
A. The constitutional reform trend is driven by a widespread desire, at all levels of Caribbean society, for better governance and greater equity. In the face of mounting global pressures there is a need, and a growing popular demand among increasingly knowledgeable citizens, for more effective democracy that can improve people’s lives. As Secretary General Gaviria said, there is a “new spirit” in the region to “deepen democracy.” Participants also noted that democracy in the region must appropriately reflect the socio-cultural realities of the Caribbean.
B. Participants generally favored reform rather than radical change of the Westminster model of parliamentary government, noting the relative resilience of democracy in the region, particularly in comparison to the rest of the developing world. At the same time, weaknesses, limitations and imbalances in the current system were examined in detail, and concerns were expressed that four decades after the first of the English-speaking nations achieved independence, there was “a crisis of governance,” which could lead to instability in the region unless serious and substantial reforms were implemented.
C. A general belief that one key to effective reform is maximizing citizen participation in the constitutional reform process, in governance generally and in the Caribbean integration effort Participants underlined the need to integrate civil society into the governing process at the local national and regional levelsas part of a more consultative and consensual approach to policy making and implementation. As stated by Sheilah Solomon, Coordinator of the Trinidad and Tobago based Citizens Caribbean Agenda Network: “The emphasis must be on equity in the decision- making process. Equity cannot be quantified, but equitable decision-making can produce more equitable results.” Related specifically to constitutional reform efforts, it was generally agreed that constitutional reform commissions should reorient their work and place greater emphasis on citizen participation and input.
D. Participants agreed that governments should be more responsive and more willing to collaborate with civil society. Strengthening civil society should not mean weaker government, but can and should lead to greater willingness on the part of both to engage in mutual and complementary efforts for improved governance. For that to happen, governments and political parties need to be more open and less wedded to adversarial politics and top-down approaches.
E. Deepening regional integration, both economic and political, was viewed as necessary for economic growth and prosperity and the preservation of Caribbean sovereignty in the face of an increasingly challenging global environment. Participants generally favored the establishment of the Caribbean Court of Justice as a final court of appeal and as the jurisdiction for hearing trade disputes under the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) and other regional agreements.
F. The international community should enhance its role in fostering debate and cooperation on the issue of constitutional reform between Caribbean countries and among the different sectors of Caribbean society. Despite various experiences with constitutional reform in the Caribbean, many political and civil society leaders involved in these processes are not sufficiently familiarized with developments outside of their own countries.
In the roundtable setting of the conference, participants were not asked to agree formally on a set of concrete measures. However, participants made proposals and recommendations, many of which drew wide support, particularly measures designed to_improve the Westminster model, to strengthen civil society and better integrate it into the process of governance, and to enhance cooperation on constitutional reform at the regional and international levels. All are discussed in the body of the Report and summarized in the concluding chapter.
[1] To review the full texts of the panel presentations, please go to the website of the OAS Unit for the Promotion of Democracy http://www.upd.oas.org click on “Information and Dialogue,” then on “Democratic Forum.” CHAPTER I: WESTMINSTER IN THE CARIBBEAN: VIABILITY PAST AND PRESENT, PROSPECTS FOR REFORM OR RADICAL CHANGE
There was little dispute over the positive aspects of the Westminster experience in the Caribbean. As Billie Miller, Deputy Prime Minister of Barbados, stated: “On balance the Caribbean’s record of constitutional government has been based on a clear respect for the rule of law, parliamentary democracy, the sanctity of life and the rights and freedoms of the individual.” Secretary General Gaviria underscored the point, noting that, “Overall, the region is known for its democratic institutions and its appreciation for democratic values and practices.”
Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, spoke of the appreciation in the Caribbean for fundamental democratic values. He emphasized that these values were not simply products of the West but were universal. He further noted that while the “Caribbean civilization” draws on cultures from many areas of the world, the embrace of democracy and freedom by the people of the region remained integral to its character and its future. Mia Mottley, Attorney General of Barbados, added that in the current global climate, with nations facing heightened security concerns, it was paramount that the Caribbean not only preserve but strengthen due process and respect for individual rights, particularly in its focus on constitutional reform.
At the same time, participants recognized that the nations of the region have had to overcome anti-democratic colonial legacies to achieve their relative success as democracies, although these nations were given very little time to prepare for the transition to independence.
Participants spoke of the independence constitutions as part of the Caribbean’s colonial inheritance from Britain, most of them negotiated with Whitehall in London and installed with little input from the people of the newly independent nations. As Deputy Prime Minister Billie Miller stated, these documents “were to a large extent artificial impositions, framed without the benefit of a full experience of self- government.” It was therefore time, she and others urged, to strengthen democracy in the region through carefully considered reforms, what some referred to as a second stage of democratic consolidation.
A number of participants believed that the full weight of authoritarian traditions and the degree to which colonial legacies continue to undermine governance in the region needed to be acknowledged before any type of reform could be considered. In the view of Lloyd Best, Director of the Trinidad Institute of the West Indies and Publisher of the Trinidad and Tobago Review, the post- independence systems had in large part recreated the colonial structure of central domination by a single, governor-type figure, namely, the Prime Minister. In Trinidad and Tobago, he said, “What we’ve inherited is a West Indian system run by people with a Westminster connection, but at every stage…essentially designed, sometimes unwittingly, for the control of popular participation.” Sheilah Solomon said that Caribbean societies were the only ones in the world originally created to institutionalize inequality, and that after five hundred years many of the structures and attitudes remained in place.
A. Impetus for Change
Although there were differences of degree in interpreting the legacies of the past, Elizabeth Spehar, Executive Coordinator of the UPD, summarized the general view of the participants as follows: since independence, the people of the Caribbean had evolved significantly, at the same time as the world as a whole had also changed, resulting in mounting pressure, both from inside and outside the region, on the Caribbean version of the Westminster model.
Some participants noted that at the time of independence, people were more accepting of top-down, centralized government, which was probably rooted in the political culture of the time. Trevor Munroe, independent Senator in the Parliament of Jamaica and Professor of Government at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, said that 40 years ago in Jamaica, 80 percent of the population preferred what he referred to as “authoritarian democracy.” Today, however, the ratio was practically reversed, with nearly three-quarters wanting more participatory, decentralized forms of government.
Deputy Prime Minister Miller said that the emphasis on education in the region had produced a more knowledgeable citizenry, “which consequently demands more from its system of government, and which now expects, and quite rightly so, a greater degree of participation in the decision-making process.” Others underscored that people now wanted more of a say than simply going to the polls once every five years or so. Some participants warned of the danger of substantial numbers of people “bowing out” of the democratic exercise, pointing to low and declining voter turnout rates in a number of countries, expressions of disaffection in opinion polls and public frustration with rising crime rates occurring practically everywhere.
Added to the internal stresses was the pressure exerted on systems and societies in the region by globalization, what George Goodwin, Jr., Acting Director General of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), referred to as “the social and economic imperatives with which our states are now confronted.” Others highlighted the traumatic effects on the Caribbean of structural adjustment and deregulation demanded by international lenders and investors, and noted the exacerbation of existing economic and social inequities by today’s global system. A number of participants raised the question of the sovereignty of small states in a globalized world. Diana Mahabir Wyatt, for example, who served as an independent Senator in the Trinidad and Tobago parliament from 1991 to 2001, asked whether the multinational corporations investing heavily in the region might now have more influence over policy than government ministries.
It was also noted that aspects of globalization—particularly new communications technologies, faster and more efficient transportation, as well as economic pressures—had brought about substantial demographic changes and wider perspectives among Caribbean people. Accelerating migration had greatly expanded the Caribbean diaspora in North America and Europe, further deepening contact between people in the region and the rest of the world. This had added to Caribbean people’s greater knowledge of different forms of government, the role of media and channels for popular participation, and raised their expectations about the possibilities of bettering themselves. In this regard, George Goodwin, Jr., quoted Prime Minister Kenny Anthony of St. Lucia:
…Not only has the process of globalization placed the issue of constitutional reform at the center of our political discourse, but the continuing process of economic liberalization and integration has challenged fundamentally our old assumptions of democracy, the relationship of citizens to the structures of power, and our attitudes to fundamental accountability, representation and participation.
Secretary General Gaviria seconded this observation, noting that "constitutional reform cannot be addressed in one Caribbean country without taking into consideration the economics and politics of the region as a whole."
B. Governance: The Heart of the Matter
At the heart of the movement for constitutional reform is the widespread and mounting desire for better governance—governance that will respond effectively to the complex dynamic of the current epoch, governance based on the fullest possible participation of citizens to ensure more equitable societies.
In this sense, most participants insisted that constitutional reform was not a political abstraction and had to be about more than simply technical adjustments. Prime Minister Gonsalves described constitutional reform as “a major political exercise in governance involving real, flesh-and-blood people awash with their peculiarities and contradictions, conditioned by their socio-political history and contemporary reality.”
Dylan Vernon, former chair of the Belize Political Reform Commission and currently Assistant Resident Representative of the UNDP in Belize, said that “constitutional reform is a means to a true end…to develop a better process of government to improve the lives of our Caribbean people.”
A number of participants believed that the task of improving governance in the region was becoming increasingly urgent. It was noted that a decade had passed since the West Indian Commission had determined that institutions of governance in the region had seriously decayed and that reform and revitalization should be a priority. Yet progress had been slow at best during the 1990s, dissatisfaction with existing politics among many citizens was deepening, and in a number of countries there were rising levels of emigration, brain drain, ethnic tensions and social unrest.
Hamid Ghany, who heads the department of Behavioral Sciences at the University of West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad, and was a member of the Constitution Review Commission in Trinidad and Tobago in the late 1980s, said that mounting stresses on institutions in the region increased the likelihood of political instability. Christopher Hackett, Coordinator of the UNDP Caribbean Oversight and Support Center, noted that "observers have increasingly been speaking of a crisis of governance in the Anglophone Caribbean, as manifested in growing incidences of political conflict, instability and, in some instances, a discernible decline in public commitment to the political order and respect for the rule of law.”
C. The Crucial Role of Civil Society
At the same time, it was emphasized that more and more citizens, particularly women, were responding in a positive way to the challenges they faced by increasing their participation in established civil society organizations such as trade unions and religious groups, and in myriad voluntary organizations involved in issues from education, domestic violence and drug abuse to the environment and infrastructure. Some participants also noted an increase in informal networking and relationships at the community level, based on mutual need and reciprocal support, which was providing the basis for the emergence of renewed civic organizations in both urban and rural areas.
Trevor Munroe pointed out that there were now nearly 5,000 civil society organizations in Jamaica, “organizing, taking civic actions, demonstrating, all saying that they want a channel, a way to get a response.” He noted furthermore that organizations were emerging at the neighborhood and community levels to tackle problems that government was unwilling or having difficulty addressing, such as public security.
Hazel Brown, Coordinator of the Network of NGOs of Trinidad and Tobago for the Advancement of Women, noted that historically in the region the family, the household and the neighborhood have been viewed as separate from "governance". But now, many people, tired and frustrated with feeling excluded, were working at those levels on ways to govern themselves, creating the foundation for a participatory democratic culture.
Christopher Hackett quoted from the UNDP policy paper entitled Governance for Sustainable Human Development:
Good governance depends on public participation to ensure that political, social and economic priorities are based on a broad societal consensus and that the poorest and most vulnerable populations can directly influence political decision-making, particularly with respect to the allocation of development resources.
Dylan Vernon said simply that civil society “will make or break the quest for good governance in the Caribbean.”
The question then is how this wealth of positive civic energy and organization emerging outside the sphere of government can be tapped into and drawn on to promote more equitable societies. How is it possible to maximize meaningful citizen participation to enhance not only the constitutional reform process but also governance overall?
As a general measure for strengthening civil society, Attorney General Mia Mottley and others urged that all CARICOM governments fully implement in law in their respective countries the Charter of Civil Society enacted by CARICOM in 1997. The Charter, recommended by the West Indian Commission in 1992, seeks to enhance respect for political rights and civil liberties, as well as social, economic and cultural rights, and to ensure greater transparency and accountability in public affairs.
A number of participants emphasized the need to seek out and take fully into account the thinking of ordinary people. Atherton Martin, former cabinet minister in Dominica and former member of the Dominica Constitution Review Commission, said that constitutional reform could be meaningful only as a mechanism for fulfilling the aspirations of average citizens. In this regard, he had recently been involved in conducting an island-wide consultation, which showed that the people of Dominica prioritized: harmony among people, with the environment and with God; a society of stability and justice; discipline and respect for the individual; dignity, patriotism and a sense of belonging.
Participants also pointed to the need for government to be more willing to collaborate with civil society organizations. It was not believed that stronger civil society should mean weaker government, but that both be willing to engage in mutual and complementary efforts. For that to happen, however, governments and political parties needed to be more open and responsive, less wedded to adversarial politics and top-down approaches.
The Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC), a Barbados-based regional network of NGOs represented at the conference by Cecilia Babb, has consistently called for “clear and stipulated entry points for civil society in their relations with governments…to concretize and legitimize such a relationship.”
Collaboration and cooperation between government and civil society were also seen as a way to move beyond the extreme partisanship innate to an adversarial, majority-rule system, to a more consultative, consensual form of democracy.
The crucial role of civic action, the dynamic between civil society and government, and the need to bridge the often wide gulf between the two were constant themes running throughout the conference. During each of the panels participants discussed ways to enhance the role of civil society in governance: at the national and local levels, in the regional integration effort and in the constitutional reform process itself. As summarized by Sheilah Solomon: “The emphasis must be on equity in the decision-making process. Equity can’t be quantified, but equitable decision-making can produce more equitable results.”
D. Critiquing Westminster
Professor Ralph Carnegie, Executive Director of the Caribbean Law Institute Centre at the University of the West Indies in Barbados, noted that there have been questions about the Caribbean variant of the Westminster system since the beginning, even among the British experts involved in the colonial transition. He said that_the_independence_con-stitutions_actually_had_lasted longer than many observers had originally thought, but that there_was_now_a_greater_ur-gency for re-examining the model.
_Many__participants contributed to the critique of the Westminster model, and most tended to agree with the detailed analyses presented by Prime Minister Gonsalves, Diana Mahabir Wyatt and others. Following is an overall assessment of the limitations, weaknesses and imbalances which, as Elizabeth Spehar emphasized, informed the general sense of the conference participants that Westminster in the Caribbean does not always pass the test of equity and fairness:
1. The excessive authority and overwhelming power constitutionally granted to the prime minister, to the extent that, in the words of Prime Minister Gonsalves, “parliamentary government is reduced not merely to cabinet government but to prime ministerial government.”
Prime Minister Gonsalves underlined the executive’s virtually untrammeled authority with regard to government appointments—from the cabinet down through the public service—and the dissolution of parliament, saying that “all roads lead to the prime minister.” He noted that in the Caribbean, the prime minister is sometimes referred to as primus inter pares, "first among equals." Noting that that old Latin phrase may not be applicable today, Gonsalves quoted Sir Erskine Sandiford, former Prime Minister of Barbados: "He is more than Number One. He is It!”
2. The further concentration of power due to the ineffective separation between the executive and the legislature as a result of:
• the inability of small legislatures to provide oversight and accountability, particularly with regard to public finance.
• insufficient resources and expertise to properly staff parliamentary committees.
• the tendency for parliaments to act as “rubber stamps” for the executive.
It was noted that the concentration of power was also exacerbated by the government’s general lack of accountability to citizens in between elections.
Mahabir Wyatt noted, “Our countries are too small to provide large enough parliaments to make the system work. There are no backbenchers to provide creative disagreement in parties, and there are not enough parliamentarians to make the parliamentary committee system workable.” The report of the Dominica Constitution Review Commission issued in 1999 and cited by one participant, put it this way:
In small states, almost all the members of the party can be given some office as minister, parliamentary secretary or chair of a statutory corporation. The only critical voices in the Parliament will be those of the opposition, which inevitably carry little weight. All of this strengthens the power of the Prime Minister in relation to the House.
3. The erosion of judicial independence due to infringement by the executive, and the consequent undermining of accountability of public officials and threat to the integrity of the constitution as guarantor of the rights of citizens. Specifically with regard to citizen rights, Prime Minister Gonsalves said that in many constitutions the provisions regarding fundamental rights and freedoms either are too limited or do not provide adequate protection from intervention by the state. Further, provisions governing citizens’ recourse to the courts with regard to constitutional challenges to the conduct of the state are generally inadequate.
4. The first-past-the-post system often produces outcomes that do not accurately reflect election results. Numerous examples were cited, including the following four:
• The 1998 elections in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, when the Unity Labour Party (ULP) received nearly 55 percent of the popular vote but lost the election because the New Democratic Party (NDP) won eight of 15 seats in parliament.
• Grenada in 1999 when opposition parties received a combined 37 percent of the popular vote but the New National Party (NNP) won all 15 seats in parliament. • St. Lucia in 1997, when the opposition United Workers Party (UWP) received nearly 37 percent of the vote but the St. Lucia Labour Party (SLP) won all but one of 17 seats in parliament.
• Barbados in 1999, when the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) received more than a third of the vote but won only two of the 28 seats in parliament.
Many participants also expressed concerns about the potential for electoral stalemates in countries with small parliaments and an even number of seats – for example, the unsettling 18-18 tie in the December 2001 elections in Trinidad and Tobago.
5. Excessive partisanship and polarization; extreme and at times violent political competition; the hardening of animosity between ethnic groups; and a political culture characterized by dependency and fear of victimization—all stemming from or exacerbated by the winner-takes-all formula. Diana Mahabir Wyatt said that the all- or-nothing dynamic had become so intense that nearly every government position down to the clerical level seemed to be on the line with each election. This compelled political parties, particularly in societies with a small resource base, to do practically anything to win—including the use of funding from unsavory sources—and further reinforced top-down political patronage systems, the opposite of equity.
E. The Power-Sharing Option
Over the years there have been calls in the Caribbean for some form of power-sharing as a way to dilute executive power, and to alleviate excessive partisanship in ethnically heterogeneous countries and even homogeneous societies where the winner-takes-all system has engendered political strife and threatened governability. The power-sharing alternative, for example, was again on the table in ethnically bipolar Trinidad and Tobago when, as noted above, the recent elections for the 36-member parliament ended in the 18-18 tie between the black-based People’s National Movement (PNM) and the East Indian-based United National Congress (UNC).
Executive power-sharing in which two or more parties form coalitions and bargain for ministries and other important positions is prevalent in Europe and has been spreading southward, noted Selwyn Ryan, also of Trinidad and Tobago. Among CARICOM nations, executive power sharing is the basis for the parliamentary system in multiethnic Suriname, where jousting and dealing among ethnically based political parties has defined politics since before independence in 1975. Guyana, essentially bipolar, does not have executive power-sharing but recently instituted a limited form of power-sharing at the legislative level, where multiparty Joint Committees are established to find common ground and make recommendations on policy.
Proponents of power-sharing argue that in divided societies some form of power- sharing is needed to avoid the unsettling exclusion from government of entire groups for extended periods, as can be the case in a winner-take-all system. Ryan cited Nelson Mandela who, when endorsing power-sharing between blacks, whites and other groups as necessary for South Africa’s democratic transition, stated, “All hands must be on the tiller. All groups must be onside.”
Ryan, however, who has studied executive power-sharing in a number of countries around the world, surveyed the numerous drawbacks and potential pitfalls of the system, including:
• The tendency to reinforce ethnic divisions and to “re-communalize” societies rather than promote national integration.
• Extended delays in forming governments due to protracted bargaining and party switching.
• The undermining of cabinet and policy coherence as ministries are apportioned on the basis of deal-making or group veto.
• Government gridlock when clashes within ruling coalitions or swing-group vetoes stall the decision-making process. • Government coalitions operating as top-down “elite cartels” rather than representative administrations, distributing largess solely to followers to maintain loyalty.
• The entrenching of clientelism and cronyism to the point of systemic corruption, as no group perceives cleaner government to be in their interest.
• The ethnic fragmentation and marginalizing of civil society, and the frustration of the reformist impulse within society generally.
• The driving of opposition politics underground or into alternative channels such as the army, as in the case of Suriname, which has endured two military takeovers since independence.
Hans Johannes Breeveld, Lecturer at the University of Suriname, expressed agreement with much of Ryan’s analysis. He said that group self-interest generally came before national interest in his country and that despite the sharing of power, Surinamese political culture remained characterized by conflict and exclusion, both between and within groups. Still, he suggested that because of the extreme complexity of Surinamese society—with five major and at least three smaller ethnic groups—there might not be a viable alternative to power-sharing. He emphasized that the key to better governance, in whatever type of system, was to improve political culture through civic education—people learning that in a democracy “they can have different opinions without being enemies,” that political engagement can be about more than ethnic identification.
Prime Minister Gonsalves, a long-time proponent of civic education, agreed with the fundamental importance of working to deepen democratic values in Caribbean society and added that, with regard to the apportioning of quotas of power in power-sharing systems, “Mathematics cannot solve the problems of politics.” He was seconded by Sir Courtney Blackman, former Ambassador of Barbados to the United States and Permanent Representative to the OAS, who stated, “There is no substitute for good politics.”
F. Reforming Westminster
As with the case of executive power sharing, the U.S.-style presidential-legislative model found little resonance among participants. The presidential-legislative model has been on the table in a number of countries for some time, notably in Jamaica where in 1991 the government-appointed Stone Committee, headed by prominent pollster Carl Stone recommended it. More recently, James Mitchell, former prime minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, advocated a presidential form of government with a president directly elected on a fixed date with more than 50 percent of the votes cast.
Participants acknowledged that the clear separation of powers in a presidential- legislative system would induce stronger checks and balances and dilute the overwhelming power of the executive in the Westminster system. However, there were concerns among participants about the potential for political gridlock between the executive and the legislature, particularly if the two branches were in the hands of different parties. One of the principal advantages of the parliamentary system, it was noted, was the usually efficient implementation of policy and programs.
There was also a sense that there was little or no constituency in the region for a radical departure from Westminster. Concerns were expressed, as well, that embarking on radical change might endanger some of the positive aspects of Caribbean democracy. Ray Harris, for example, a legislative legal counsel in Dominica, underlined the imperative of preserving the rule of law and said, “I fear the baby could be thrown out with the bath water.”
At the same time it was generally believed that there were serious and substantial reforms that could be carried out that would go a long way toward correcting or at least alleviating the imbalances and deficiencies of the current system. The proposals put forth and generally agreed with by participants were as follows:
1. Introducing an element of proportional representation into the first-past-the- post framework, with the primary aims of strengthening the legislature, lessening the power of the prime minister and evening out electoral imbalances and distortions.
A number of variations on the mixed-system approach were offered:
• In the case of bicameral parliaments with appointed senates, the transformation of the upper house into an elected body, with some or all of the senators elected by proportional representation using national political lists.
• The introduction of proportional representation to one degree or another in both the upper and lower houses.
• In the case of unicameral parliaments, a substantial percentage of seats to be elected proportionally and the remainder by first-past-the-post.
• Increasing the number of seats in either one or both houses while at the same time introducing proportional representation.
Barbados Deputy Prime Minister Billie Miller and Attorney General Mia Mottley were two of the participants who expressed support for a mixed system utilizing proportional representation. Miller announced that the Barbados government was preparing to bring before parliament in 2002 a new draft Constitution based on the recommendations of the Barbados Constitution Review Commission issued in 1998. Notably, the Commission did not recommend introducing proportional representation, although one dissenting member advocated that it be used in the Senate. Now, however, the question in Barbados appears to be not whether but what form of mixed system will be agreed, whether it be one of the options mentioned above, or some other variation. Richie Haynes, for example, leader of the third political party in Barbados, the National Democratic Party (NDP), has proposed abolishing the Senate and increasing the Lower House by ten seats (from 28 to 38), with all the new seats elected proportionally.
2. Integrating civil society into the political system, to enhance its capacity to influence decision-making and contribute to government oversight, and to promote more consultative, consensual and less adversarial politics. In this regard, Christopher Hackett quoted Gladstone Bonnick, a Jamaican economist formerly with the World Bank, who said, “greater accountability of government to the citizenry would require greater opportunities for citizen oversight of government operations.”
A number of participants urged that, in upper houses in which senators continued to be appointed, the number of independent senators representing civic groups such as women’s organizations and trade unions be increased, and that their role in parliament, particularly with regard to introducing and voting on legislation, be strengthened.
Lloyd Best, calling for a “reorganization of participation,” proposed that upper houses be composed entirely of community leaders and civic representatives, elected both proportionally and geographically “to ensure the largest and most effective number of voices,” and that this body be “capable of instructing and disciplining the executive and the government.” Additionally, Best recommended that the lower house continue to be contested by political parties, but be elected proportionally.
Haslyn Parris, a key member of the Guyana Constitution Reform Commission formed after the disputed elections of December 1997, referred, in a paper presented to the conference, to Article 13 of the revised Constitution of Guyana, which says:
The principal objective of the State is to establish an inclusionary democracy by providing increasing opportunities for the participation of citizens and their organizations in the management and decision-making processes of the State, with particular emphasis on those areas of decision-making that directly affect their well-being.
Parris said that implementation of Article 13 had been delayed because appropriate and workable “consultation protocols” had yet to be established. He nonetheless believed that this “new paradigm of decision-making” held the potential for moving beyond the adversarial politics inherent in the traditional parliamentary system. Rather than political parties simply arguing for or against a given policy, government and citizens would together, through a process of “meaningful consultation,” explore policy options in an effort to determine and reach consensus on the best option for all.
Trevor Munroe suggested that consultative frameworks recently established in Scotland and Wales should be studied as possible models for creating more consensual forms and methods of governance. In Scotland, for example, a body called the Civic Forum has been set up as a mechanism for regular and ongoing consultations on policy between government and citizens. As of June 2000 the Scottish Civic Forum had about 600 member organizations drawn from all sectors of Scottish society.
Another model to consider is the Constituency Consultative Committees recommended by the aforementioned Stone Committee in Jamaica. As proposed, these Committees would be comprised of representatives from civic bodies – for example, churches, citizen associations and youth groups – and would include the elected members of parliament for each constituency. Members of each Committee would work with the MP in drawing up constituency budgets, establishing project priorities and monitoring implementation, ideally in a non-partisan way.
3. A number of other proposals put on the table didn’t necessarily fall into the two categories above. Among them were:
• The use of popular referenda to allow citizens’ to vote directly on policy issues. It was noted that the Barbados Constitution Review Commission recommended a variation of this mechanism called “People’s Initiatives” in 1998. As proposed, People’s Initiatives would not be conducted as automatically binding referenda. Rather, at the time of a general election, citizens could present for approval by the electorate proposals for legislation by the incoming parliament. If approved by some qualifying percentage of voters, the government would be compelled to present the legislation to parliament, “where it would be the object of a free vote not subject to the discipline of the Party Whips.” Popular referenda have been little used in the English-speaking Caribbean; however, two-thirds of CARICOM nations require that they be used to approve constitutional changes.
• Limiting the size of the Cabinet to reduce the ability of Cabinet members to dominate and control their parliamentary colleagues. Caswell Franklyn, Research Administrator at the Barbados Ministry of Home Affairs, suggested that the number of members of parliament appointed to the Cabinet should be limited to no more than half the total number of members of parliament. The Stone Committee in Jamaica and the Belize Political Reform Commission recommended that the number not exceed 40 percent.
• Enhancing the capacity and increasing the resources available for legislatures and legislative committees to carry out research and investigations. This would include reviewing possible models such as the legislative oversight bodies in other countries, for example, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) and the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in the United States. It would also mean raising salaries of parliamentarians so that backbenchers and opposition representatives would be sufficiently remunerated for full-time committee work.
As advocated by Attorney General Mia Mottley and others, a thorough reassessment of the general funding and campaign-financing practices of political parties and the implementation of regulations and laws to ensure complete transparency and accountability regarding the sources and uses of such funding.
CHAPTER II: THE CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM PROCESS: COMMISSIONS, PROCEDURES AND THE ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY
Most of the independence constitutions were fashioned and installed with little or no popular input. A major concern expressed during the conference was that there was still a gulf between the needs and aspirations of ordinary people and the endeavors of political elites, “a disconnect” not only between citizens and government in the region but also between citizens and the constitutional reform process itself.
George Goodwin, Jr. noted that in assisting some of its member states with constitutional reform, the OECS found that there was “a strong sense of exclusion by the citizenry from the governance process and a lack of capacity to become involved.”
Ermina Osoba, head of the UWI University Centre in Antigua and Barbuda, said that in that country’s constitutional reform process “grassroots participation” had been minimal. Sir Fred Phillips, who heads the Constitutional Re-form Commission in Antigua and Barbuda, agreed with Osoba, noting, however, that public meetings were being held by the Commission in Antigua and Barbuda but were not always well attended.
Many participants attributed the disconnection between citizens and constitutional reform processes to the top-down nature of the process in many countries, in which a government appoints what it deems to be a representative commission and mandates it to gauge the views of society and incorporate its findings into a report to be considered by parliament. Lloyd Best viewed this as a legacy of the old colonial Royal Commission procedure, and expressed the belief that "most politicians do not want political reform but view the commissions as a way to go through the motions." Other participants noted that a number of commission reports mostly had been “gathering dust” since their publication.
Still, it was generally agreed that citizens do want to have a say in the process. As Cecilia Babb, Deputy Coordinator of the Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC), said, “The people are very keen to be involved in the issues that directly affect their lives and threaten their well-being.” But, she continued, they see the process as ineffective and don’t perceive the commission reports as reflecting their points of view or their experience.
Lloyd Best described how in Trinidad and Tobago, in response to the resistance to reform by the political system, there was “a de facto constituent assembly taking place in the media and in the streets.” In this sense, he said, the process of constitutional reform was happening every day as people sought whatever peaceful means available “to limit the exercise of power and change the way things are done.” The question, he said, was “whether it would reach critical mass” and how it would unfold if it did.
A. Lessons from the Reform Process in Belize
Dylan Vernon described the constitutional reform effort in Belize, which provided a number of insights into how reform commissions in the Caribbean can be effective and inclusive. Vernon is a former director of the civil society organization known as SPEAR (Society for the Promotion of Education and Research) in Belize and the former chair of the Belize Political Reform Commission. In prefacing his remarks, he said that in Belize the term “political reform” was preferred; that reforming the constitution was viewed as a subset of political reform, an important distinction, he said, since not all reforms to improve democratic governance require constitutional change.
Vernon emphasized that the issue of political reform was not put on the national agenda by the government or political parties, but by citizens of the country acting through an array of civil society organizations. The four-year civil-society campaign in Belize was initiated in 1994 by SPEAR with the goal of examining how well the nation’s democracy was serving the people. The effort was based on extensive civic participation and included nearly 60 public consultations, petitioning, informal balloting, radio programs and newsletters. As more and more non-governmental organizations came on board, networking increased, cooperative efforts were enhanced, and the media took up the issue with regular coverage.
The campaign culminated with a statement that democracy in Belize was “in crisis” due to excessive concentration of power, lack of political awareness, poor levels of participation, official corruption and mounting public disillusionment, and called for a national reform process. As a result, the two main political parties in the country finally made political reform one of the major issues in the 1998-election campaign and, soon after the new government took office, it established the broad-based, civil society-led Political Reform Commission.
The Commission was given a one-year mandate to review the political system and recommend reforms. According to Vernon, it made a strong effort to maintain the civic-participation approach used during the campaign, utilizing public meetings nationwide, radio programs and regular communication with interest groups and citizens. Vernon said that ordinary people became involved to a significant degree in the consultations, but that there were complaints, particularly in rural areas, about insufficient opportunities to participate.
The Commission presented a report much in line with views expressed at the OAS/UNDP conference in Barbados. For example, it recommended that the Westminster model be retained, but that a substantial number of political reforms be carried out, including the introduction of proportional representation in the Senate and the establishment of mechanisms to institutionalize collaboration between government and civil society on national economic development and governance issues. The Commission report noted that a statement by one Belizean who contributed to the consultation process “Let’s rock the boat but not overturn it” reflected the views of a majority of citizens who participated. Of the 75 recommendations for change, 45 required constitutional amendments.
The Commission was dissolved after the report was delivered to the government. Vernon believed that was a mistake because the momentum for reform has since slowed, even though some of the Commission’s recommendations have been carried out by the government. He said there remain significant levels of popular disillusionment because government continues to be highly centralized and disinclined to address corruption issues. Civil society organizations therefore had been trying to reinvigorate the reform process, he said.
Vernon and other participants believed that reform commissions have an important role to play in the effort to improve democracy, but should be seen as only one part of the process. Vernon also said that an “exit strategy” should be considered at the time commissions are established, particularly with regard to their having a role in monitoring the implementation of their recommendations.
Vernon believed that it was still too early to assess fully the long-term impact of the Commission in Belize. However, he said that it was clear in Belize that political reform was “demand-driven,” that the onus “is squarely on the shoulders of civil society,” that government is disinclined to act unless there is civic pressure, and that the efforts of civil society must be sustained.
Participants generally supported Vernon’s recommendations and, with the aim of further enhancing the learning process within the region, endorsed the establishment of a constitutional reform resource center at the University of the West Indies, possibly supported by the international community. The center would house archives of constitutional reform commission reports and other pertinent materials, and promote resource sharing, cooperation and technical training on constitutional reform throughout the Caribbean.
B. The Challenge of Sustaining Civic Action
Participants agreed that the role of civil society was fundamental in the reform process. Sheilah Solomon said that constitutional reform “as a gift from above” lacks legitimacy and cannot function. For the process to be meaningful it must be driven by citizens. Hazel Brown underlined that civil society must take the initiative, as it did in Belize, saying, “people don’t need to get permission to push for constitutional reform.”
Trevor Munroe said that the reform process in Belize was reminiscent of the effort in Jamaica in the 1990s. Much of the energy was derived from civil society activity there, too, in response to mounting public dissatisfaction with existing politics. But, as in Belize, there remained the challenge of sustaining civic action and better coordinating it to ensure that the process doesn’t lag and that recommendations are carried through.
It was generally recognized that civic and political education are critical for enhancing the role of civil society in constitutional reform processes and that every effort be made to ensure that citizens understand the process. Prime Minister Gonsalves stated that one of the most exciting things about constitutional reform was the opportunity to “enliven the people through popular participation and education,” and argued that there should be no time limits on the process. A few months earlier, he had stated with regard to constitutional reform in St. Vincent and the Grenadines: “I want to do this in a careful, thorough-going manner so that when we are finished, there is no man or woman, young person or old person, rich or poor, in this country, who will be able to say that he or she does not know what is happening, what are the changes.”
A primary goal therefore is to ensure that all citizens have the understanding and capability to effectively participate in reform programs and consultations. Some participants at the conference promoted the idea of instituting better education and training programs through the schools. Others advocated learning citizenship through action and experience. Lloyd Best, for example, said that an important part of the informal, constituent assembly in the streets process he perceived in Trinidad and Tobago was people gaining knowledge through the process of civic engagement itself.
Hazel Brown suggested that in any process of citizen consultation, there should be guarantees for substantial contributions by women and youth. When she asked participants at the conference how many were under the age of 30, one hand went up. “We can’t be making decisions without young people,” she said.
C. Utilizing New Technologies and the Media
Hazel Brown also emphasized that popular participation in the reform process, and in governance overall, should be enhanced by better and more democratized use of new technologies, particularly the Internet, through which people can expand communications between each other and with governmental bodies. “You can vote on something every day on the Internet,” she said. “Ordinary people can be discussing constitutional reform right now on the Internet, not just academics.”
Others agreed that such technologies could be utilized to promote more “quality citizen inputs” into the consultation process of constitutional reform. Since its founding, the Citizens Caribbean Agenda Network, the organization coordinated by Sheilah Solomon, has advocated the use of new technologies to enhance citizen participation by developing human potential at the community level. Some of its recommendations for addressing “information poverty” are:
• local computer based tele centers for accessing government services and other information sources.
• use of computer technology to motivate the learning process among younger males.
• Computer based adult education programs with flexible scheduling, childcare and other female friendly features.
Attorney General Mia Mottley reiterated the importance of freedom of information, particular from official sources, and advocated for mechanisms, in the reform process and in governance generally, that would ensure that citizens know what they are entitled to know and how to gain access to it.
The role of the media, both in civic education and in amplifying the voices of citizens, was emphasized. “Media should become a better arm of citizen knowledge,” Attorney General Mottley said. The importance of the broadcast media in Belize in the reform campaign and in the formal commission process itself was noted, particularly the regular, structured programming on radio. Ermina Osoba said that the increasing number of media in Antigua and Barbuda, particularly radio, was helping to encourage greater citizen participation in public affairs.
A number of participants noted the role of talk and call-in shows in providing a channel for citizens to air their views. But they advocated as well for more focused and structured media programming, particularly in the publicly owned broadcasting media, to promote deeper discussions on issues such as constitutional reform and to ensure that citizen voices are regularly channeled into government ears.
D. A New Emphasis for Constitutional Reform Commissions
As underlined by Sir Fred Phillips, participants agreed that constitutional reform requires not only an active citizenry but also responsive government. Much of the responsibility is therefore with governments in the region and the commissions they establish to keep the reform process from succumbing to what Hazel Brown called “the wise-men syndrome,” a top-down exercise that often can amount to little more than going though the motions. To ensure a meaningful and effective process, governments and commissions were urged to:
• consider the various lessons of the experience in Belize.
• fully implement mechanisms for civic consultation.
• ensure that the participation of civil society is maximized through better utilization of new technologies and the media.
• take fully into account all civic inputs when considering their recommendations.
In this regard it was noted that the UNDP already has been promoting greater civic participation in the constitutional reform process in the region, that the international community overall has made strengthening civil society a high priority, and that these efforts and energies should be drawn on as much as possible in the Caribbean.
Finally, many conference participants recommended that governments and constitutional reform commissions make every effort to learn from reform efforts in other countries. They noted that the Belize experience was not well known in the rest of the region and could be applicable to elsewhere in the Caribbean. The international community could be especially helpful in facilitating such information- sharing endeavors. CHAPTER III: LOCAL GOVERNMENT: DECENTRALIZATION, CITIZEN INPUT AND COMMUNITY ACTION IN GOVERNANCE AND DEVELOPMENT
Democratically elected local government has been perceived by many in the Caribbean as important for enhancing popular participation and more direct citizen involvement in social and economic development. That even seemed to be the view of the former colonial power, as the West India Royal Commission, also known as the Moyne Commission, stated in its 1945 report that “the improvement of the social conditions in these territories depends in large measure on co-operation between the central administration and the people,” through “completely democratic” and “well conducted local authorities.”
Yet local government in the region has been at best uneven and in some countries remains non-existent. In the view of Neville Duncan, Director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, most political elites in the Caribbean simply don’t want effective local government.
Part of the reason, as suggested by Keith Miller, Senior Consultant with the Jamaican Ministry of Local Government and Community Development, is that strengthening local government can be one of the more effective ways of diluting centralized political power in the Westminster system, particularly as it is exercised by political parties through top-down systems of patronage.
Most participants agreed on the potential for local government to decentralize decision-making and involve communities directly in social and economic development. Hazel Brown suggested that there are five levels of governance in which human beings interact, power is exercised and services delivered:
1) the household; 2) the community, including the neighborhood and workplace; 3) local government; 4) national government; and 5) regional and global organizations.
She said that local government can and should act as the intersection or intermediary between each of the other four. Local government should be the link through which citizen and community groups channel their input into the formation of government policies.
Neville Duncan emphasized that in this type of integration from below, the traditional, top-down form of interaction between national government and communities would have to be replaced by “continuous formal and informal, two-way communication through multiple channels.”
A. Citizen-Driven Governance
Phillip LaCorbinnaire, Legal Advisor at the Secretariat of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), said that even in the smallest states, local government can be one of the most effective ways not only of involving people in the process of governance, but in tapping into the knowledge and problem solving skills of citizens at the community level. Atherton Martin pointed out that in much of the Caribbean, people have historically and effectively run their own villages, a tradition that continues to provide the foundation for the generally effective elected village council system in Dominica. Participants generally agreed that while funding local government was not easy for small states, it was clearly a worthwhile expenditure because of the important channel provided by local government for greater citizen participation.
Anne Marie Blackman, Senior Specialist with the OAS Unit for the Promotion of Democracy, said that along with citizen participation, building local government also required technical and administrative training and adequate resources, what Keith Miller referred to as “fiscal decentralization.” Blackman and others advocated that these and other provisions necessary for stronger local government should be incorporated into national constitutions, but reiterated the challenge of overcoming a political culture in which central governments do not want to cede power and many people are not used to having or wielding it. At the same time, Blackman emphasized that the international community is now promoting local government as being as important to the strengthening of democracy as civil society involvement.
Sheilah Solomon underlined how the constitutional reform process in Belize had been propelled by civil society, and said that strengthening local government structures in law and enhancing local governance overall required a similar citizen-driven effort. She and other participants said citizens must assume the role of setting the agenda for elected officials to follow, both in constitutional reform and as the first stage of accountability in an envisioned bottom-up rather than top-down political system.
This could be done through a number of methods that Solomon’s organization, the Citizens Caribbean Agenda Network, was already introducing in Trinidad and Tobago, including citizens’ referenda conducted through local and national media, and participatory consultations conducted by facilitators. She mentioned, too, the “participatory budgeting” procedures utilized in some communities in Brazil and elsewhere, and the idea of using citizen input to create public databases and “community profiles” to determine how public funds should be spent on services and infrastructure. All such mechanisms, she said, allow people to learn the ropes of governance and civic action through direct experience and also provide a consultative framework for organizing civil society and its relations with government at both the local and national level.
Deputy Prime Minister Billie Miller said that the Barbados government advocated for inclusion and broad-based consensus building at the community level, stating, “Our societies are too small and our human resources too limited to allow us to continue to prosper under a system that emphasizes polarization and adversarial politics, while failing to embrace the full capacity of our citizenry in the process of governance.”
Solomon, too, recommended that the systems of local government be “de- politicized,” and that during the constitutional reform process political parties be barred from competing for local office. She argued that the success of the village councils in Dominica stemmed in part from such a prohibition and said that local government, if based on citizen participation and consultation, could become the spawning ground of a new political culture, to which the political parties could then adapt or not.
Caswell Franklyn demurred on the issue of de-politicizing local government, saying that local government should be brought back in Barbados where it would be useful as “a proving ground” for aspiring politicians. Sir Courtney Blackman said that while he believed decision-making is too centralized in Barbados—that school management, for example, should not be determined at the center—he doubted the viability of local government in Barbados, pointing out that very few people voted in local elections when the country did have such a system.
B. Local Government Reform and Constitutional Reform
As highlighted by Keith Miller, constitutional reform is critical to the process of local government reform because “many of the requirements for creating strong, vibrant and autonomous systems of local governance will only be achieved and maintained if there are suitable provisions and safeguards in the constitution.” He noted that there was a long history in the Caribbean of local authorities and institutions being dissolved or their functions usurped by national governments, proof that without constitutional guarantees local governments would remain vulnerable to “the whims and fancies of central governments.”
Miller stated that in addition to basic constitutional protections, there were several other measures needed to ensure the efficacy of local governments, their autonomy as instruments for real and meaningful self-management. Among these measures are:
• Provisions and statutes for the holding of local government elections that would safeguard them against being utilized to “test the waters” or to “ride on the coattails” of national elections, and ensure that local elections actually serve to enhance debate about local issues and accountability.
• Provisions for the direct election of key local officials such as mayors to ensure that they have an independent power base and are directly accountable to the citizens whom they serve and on whose behalf they hold office.
• Recognition in law of local government as a distinct sphere, with clearly defined authority and parameters regarding public affairs and policy issues such as planning and sustainable development.
• Entrenching “fiscal decentralization” in law to ensure that local authorities have access to adequate and independent sources of revenue.
CHAPTER IV: REGIONAL INTEGRATION: SMALL STATES AND POLITICAL SOVEREIGNTY IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY
Regional unity and how to achieve it has been an issue since the ill-fated West Indian Federation and the subsequent formation of CARICOM. Especially since the end of the Cold War, there has been a heightened sense that more profound integration is necessary for the nations of the region to be able to compete in the global economy. Some observers have pointed to the relative success of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and its common currency and court system. However, as has been particularly evident during the controversy over banana exports, the generally small economies of the Caribbean remain highly vulnerable, in what Sir Courtney Blackman described as an “increasingly challenging, even hostile global environment.” As stated by Albert Ramdin, Advisor to the Secretary General of the OAS and former Ambassador of Suriname to the Organization of American States and to the United States: for the Caribbean, integration is a matter of economic survival.
Ramdin, Blackman and others emphasized that the sovereignty of Caribbean nations was at risk not only because of global economic demands, but also as a result of the spread of global communications and the requirements of membership and participation in an increasing number of international bodies. With regard to global engagement, it has become ever more difficult for small states to balance national interests with international commitments, particularly when the current epoch presents challenges that cannot be confronted alone.
Participants also noted the practical difficulties of individual Caribbean nations trying to have diplomats present at all international and regional summits where decisions directly affecting the Caribbean are being made. In the case of small states, the costs can be prohibitive. Even when Caribbean nations do manage to send representatives, noted Ambassador Ramdin, there is the no less difficult task of trying to coordinate more than a dozen nations into a single voice. Meanwhile, larger, wealthier countries can afford to be present in force at each gathering, from the World Trade Organization on down. It was noted by participants that the Regional Negotiating Mechanism (RNM) instituted by CARICOM to coordinate the Caribbean’s response on trade and economic issues was only a first step that needed greater support from member nations.
It was generally agreed that regional integration entails not only economic union through the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), but also the creation of a more effective political and diplomatic framework for engaging the rest of the world. This means agreeing to a common agenda on difficult global issues such as trade, illegal narcotics, terrorism and the environment, and would again require balancing national interests with the interests of the region overall. Participants saw no real alternative and, as Cecilia Babb of the CPDC, itself a regionally integrated organization of NGOs, said, making concessions at the national level were necessary because achieving political integration was the way to preserve the sovereignty of the region as a whole.
A number of participants saw the European Union as a possible model for deeper integration, with CARICOM moving beyond its current coordinating role to assuming a more executive capacity in overseeing the affairs of the region. But everyone acknowledged that the challenge and complexity of building something approaching a unitary state from among the nations of the Caribbean were enormous. Neville Duncan spoke of rotating positions and responsibilities among nations as a possible basis for greater political union, and underlined the need to find an equitable way for distributing costs and benefits among nations of varying size and economic development. He also reminded participants that Suriname and Haiti were members of CARICOM and part of “our Caribbean identity,” and that integration therefore was not simply a challenge of deepening ties among English-speaking nations.
Participants generally believed that CARICOM bodies needed to be reformed, both as a prelude to deeper regional integration and as a necessary task for improving the present operations of CARICOM. Albert Ramdin, who is also former Assistant Secretary General of CARICOM, said that a “complete overhaul of the regional institutions,” to ensure better efficiency, accountability and sharing of resources, was required for the Caribbean to assert itself meaningfully and effectively on the global stage. Derrick Brown of the Caribbean Development Bank agreed, stating that regional institutions were at risk of “falling apart” and in need of “sound management.
A. Constitutional Requirements of Integration
Both economic and political integration require harmonization of regulatory frameworks and legal systems among the nations of the region, a task requiring complicated and coordinated constitutional reform. George Goodwin, Jr., referred to it as the need “to align constitutions with a world where the role of the nation state has changed dramatically, especially in the past decade.” With specific regard to the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), he stated:
For these initiatives to succeed and be translated into reality, constitutional issues of shared or integrated sovereignty, which our Westminster model did not contemplate, now have to be addressed. The collective protection of human rights and, specifically, the rights of those who cross borders either to work or to establish businesses have to be confronted head on.
Hamid Ghany questioned whether deep reforms were politically feasible, given that the procedures for amending constitutions in the region were so rigid, with a majority of countries requiring a national referendum and others needing a substantial majority of votes in parliament. This concern would apply in the case of any significant constitutional reform, but particularly with regard to regional integration.
Ghany said that it was also questionable whether CARICOM itself, given the track record of unity efforts in the region, could be expected to provide the necessary political momentum, and that if greater, more meaningful integration were to be achieved, “people must be mobilized.” Caswell Franklyn believed that average citizens desire integration particularly the freedom to travel and work within the region more than politicians, and said that their voices would have to be heard if progress were to be made.
Trevor Munroe agreed that traditional-style politics remained an impediment to integration. He said, supported by Babb and many others, that “Necessity drives us to a less adversarial approach,” that a civil-society led movement, based on a more consensual style, was necessary to encourage politicians to act constructively on regional integration, just as it was needed to achieve reform at the national level.
B. Caribbean Court of Justice
The need to harmonize legal systems and concerns about Caribbean sovereignty converged with the issue of the proposed Caribbean Court of Justice. Participants, including OAS Secretary General Gaviria, generally favored it both as a replacement for the Privy Council in the United Kingdom as the final court of appeal, and also as the jurisdiction for hearing trade disputes brought by one country against another under CSME and other CARICOM agreements.
Sir Courtney Blackman stated that the Caribbean needed its own court of appeal because, “We can’t appeal to a court in a country which itself is challenging our sovereignty.” David Cox, an attorney in the office of the Attorney General in St. Lucia, said that the European Court of Justice was “a lynchpin” in the success thus far of the European Union, underpinning both economic and political integration on the continent.
Michael J. Bradley, Constitutional Advisor with the Overseas Territories Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British Government, noted that three of the British Territories in the Caribbean – Montserrat, Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands – are members of the OECS and within the jurisdiction of the OESC Supreme Court, with right of ultimate appeal to the Privy Council. He said that if CARICOM established the Caribbean Court of Justice, London would probably want the three territories to remain within the purview of the Privy Council, which would raise questions about the status of the three territories within the OECS.
Bradley added that all British Territories, including the five in the Caribbean—the other two being the Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands—and Bermuda, were involved in an ongoing process of constitutional modernization “to best meet the needs of the 21st Century.” He said the process was inclusive and involved extensive consultations with all segments of society. In the Caribbean territories, internal self government essentially followed the Westminster model, while in the ongoing review processes the introduction of a Bill of Rights and proportional representation were foreseen. He also reminded participants that there is a procedure for territories to pursue independence if their citizens are so inclined.
CHAPTER V: SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
In his inaugural speech OAS Secretary General Gaviria emphasized that the organizers of the conference did not come with "any preconceived notions of constitutional reform in the region." He recognized that along with the many similarities between the Caribbean nations engaged in constitutional reform, there are also important historical and cultural differences. Nonetheless, it has been evident generally that despite the creation of reform commissions and the publication of reports in a number of countries, progress on constitutional reform, indeed on improving governance overall, has thus far been limited.
It was therefore the hope, in fact the primary objective of the conference, that the nearly 60 participants from 14 Caribbean countries and territories, representing a wide range of perspectives from different sectors of society, would contribute their reflections, assessments and recommendations to these important processes. In the round-table setting of the conference, participants were not asked to agree formally on a set of concrete measures. However, a number of proposals and recommendations were made that drew wide support, particularly measures designed to improve the Westminster model, to strengthen civil society and better integrate it into the process of governance, and to enhance cooperation on constitutional reform at the regional and international levels.
The following provides a review of these recommendations and proposals. A fuller explanation of each topic can be found in the corresponding chapters of each theme.
A. Proposals for Improving Westminster
1. Introducing an element of proportional representation into the first-past- the-post framework. Some form of proportional representation would strengthen the legislature and lessen the growing powers of the Prime Minister. Likewise, proportional representation could help alleviate electoral distortions. Elements of the proportional representation system considered during the conference included making the senate an elected body by using national lists or electing the Lower House through a combination of first-past the post and proportional representation.
2. Limiting the size of the Cabinet as a proportion of the total number of members in Parliament to reduce the ability of Cabinet members to dominate and control their parliamentary colleagues. Such recommendations have already been formally made in Jamaica and Belize.
3. Strengthening legislatures and legislative committees to better conduct research and investigations. Such a recommendation would necessarily imply increased resources for the legislatures, a part of which should be devoted to salaries of parliamentarians in order to create a more engaged and constructive opposition.
4. Conducting popular referenda to allow citizens to vote directly on policy issues. While these referenda do not have to be binding, citizens could present for approval by the electorate proposals for legislation by the incoming parliament. If approved by some qualifying percentage of voters, the government would be compelled to present the legislation to parliament.
5. Reassessing and reforming campaign and political party funding practices and implementing laws and regulations to ensure transparency and accountability regarding the sources and uses of such funding.
B. Proposals for Integrating Civil Society into the Political System
To enhance the capacity of civil society to influence decision-making and contribute to government oversight, and to promote more consultative, consensual and less adversarial politics, participants offered a number of suggestions:
1. Increasing the number of independent senators representing civil society groups and enhancing their ability to review and vote on legislation.
2. Having the upper houses be composed entirely of community leaders and civic representatives to ensure the largest and most effective number of voices. Likewise this "civil society senate" should be given substantial oversight responsibilities for the executive and the government.
3. Reviewing worldwide models for creating more consensual forms and methods of governance. A body called the Civic Forum in Scotland, for example, was established to facilitate regular consultations on policy between government and citizens and merit further study for its applicability in the Caribbean.
C. Proposals for Strengthening Civil Society in the Constitutional Reform Process and in Governance
1. Implementing through national legislation the Charter of Civil Society enacted by CARICOM in 1997, which seeks to enhance respect for political rights and civil liberties, as well as social, economic and cultural rights, and to ensure greater transparency and accountability in public affairs.
2. Increasing civic education through the schools and the media.
3. Promoting the use of new technologies through which people can expand communications between each other and with governmental bodies.
4. Strengthening laws guaranteeing access to information, particularly from official sources. Moreover, clear guidelines should be established and promoted to ensure that citizens know what they are entitled to know and how to gain access to it.
5. Increasing public service programming through the broadcast media to promote discussions on specific issues such as constitutional reform.
6. Ensuring substantial participation and contributions by women and youth in any formal consultation process, particularly on constitutional reform.
D. Proposals with regard to the Constitutional Reform Process
Participants endorsed the establishment of a constitutional reform resource center at the University of the West Indies (UWI), possibly supported by the international community. The center would house archives of constitutional reform commission reports and other pertinent materials, and promote resource sharing, cooperation and technical training on constitutional reform throughout the Caribbean.
To strengthen the role of constitutional reform commissions, participants also recommended:
1. Allowing for sufficient time to conduct comprehensive consultations with the citizenry and not mandating a set time limit for the reform commissions.
2. Not concluding the work of reform commissions upon completion of a final report. Time and resources should also be devoted to encourage the implementation of its recommendations.
3. Ensuring the active participation of civil society and incorporating their recommendations as fully as possible.
E. Proposals regarding Local Government
In addition to maximizing citizen participation at the local and community levels, participants recommended:
1. Implementing some sort of local governance mechanism in all Caribbean countries, even in the smallest of the island states. According to the participants, local government increases the effectiveness of government and provides greater opportunities for citizen participation.
2. Establishing constitutional provisions to ensure adequate resources for local government.
3. De-politicizing local government, by establishing that political parties are barred from competing for local office.
F. Proposals regarding Regional Integration
1. Creating a more effective political and diplomatic framework for conducting the region’s affairs and engaging the rest of the world.
2. Establishing the Caribbean Court of Justice as the final court of appeal and granting it jurisdiction for hearing trade disputes between CARICOM countries.
3. Promoting regional integration through civil society to encourage politicians to act on the issue in a constructive and more consensual manner.
4. Overhauling CARICOM bodies and institutions as a prelude to deeper regional integration.
G. Proposals regarding the International Community
1. Fostering exchanges and cooperation among Caribbean nations and territories as well as with other countries outside of the region engaged in constitutional reform.
2. Emphasizing the linkage between civil society and the constitutional reform commissions, keeping in mind that citizen outreach means seeking input and educating the public.
3. Encouraging countries engaged in constitutional reform processes to conduct such processes in the framework of an ongoing, citizen-involved quest for better democratic governance, and not limit them to the work of commissions, with special consideration for promoting the participation of women and youth in particular.
4. Assisting in identifying and promoting forms of local government that are both effective and utilize the skills and knowledge of citizens.
5. Supporting the efforts of Caribbean countries to enhance their constitutional review and reform processes, possibly through the support of initiatives such as the establishment of a constitutional reform resource center at UWI.