Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Karr was right, in his own time as in ours. Shortly before Saint Lucia’s general elections on 26 July 2021—and with COVID-19 perceived by a significant percentage of the electorate more as a political football than an indiscriminate population adjuster—our Constitution abruptly became worthy of public discourse.
The last time it had attracted parliamentary attention (again shortly before a general election!) the stated concerns had centered on the recommendations of a Constitutional Reform Commission, led by the late Justice Suzie d’Auvergne. Speaking for himself, the day’s prime minister and former lecturer on constitutional law announced his discomfort with the premises on which provisions were created to establish the public service. His thinking was that the 36-year-old provisions were in dire need of radical adjustment. He had “serious and fundamental problems with issues regarding the so-called independence of office.”
He was at odds with the constitution’s “most deeply entrenched provisions that demand a three-quarters majority in the House, as well as a majority of works in our referendum.”
At his sonorous behest, fellow honorable MPs agreed on 18 August 2015 to postpone further discussion of the d’Auvergne report that had taken nearly five years to complete, at high cost to taxpayers. The prime minister promised to appoint in the meantime a special committee to assess the commission’s recommendations and to report its conclusions to parliament. If indeed he was true to his word, the evidence remains the state’s best kept secret.
Nearly six years on, as noted above, Saint Lucia’s Constitution was once again on parliament’s front burner. But not to pick up where members had left off. Oh no! This time around the focus was on a bill presented by the prime minister, its stated purpose being “to regulate the containment of the spread of COVID-19 in Saint Lucia in the interest of public safety.”
It was hardly a surprise when it came time to vote that the House opposition picked up their papers and raucously scrambled out of the chamber into the arms of exuberant scoop seekers, more than half of them with their own not so secret scores to settle. Meanwhile an imposed COVID-19 related State of Emergency had run its course. Citizens were free again to roam at their pleasure, possible deadly consequences be damned.
The combustible election-time atmosphere was intensified by the governor general’s swearing in of “temporary senators”—which ensured the Upper House was constitutionally operational, opposition and independent senators having absented themselves from a make or break session, effectively denying the senate its life-giving quorum. The senate president revealed she and the governor general had earlier received from the opposition senators reasons for their non-attendance. She said the two independents had also informed the appropriate authorities of their sudden poor health, and the governor general had in consequence “temporarily appointed senators for today’s sitting.”
The senate president expressed the view that without the laws embodied in the bill the country would be “exposed to the introduction of COVID-19 and the creation of a national crisis.” She had consulted with “the legal fraternity” and came away convinced “the spirit of the Constitution would be denied if the country is not able to legislate for the protection of the health and safety of our citizens.”
Following the passing of the bill into law, one of the absentee senators issued a statement, here reproduced in part: “Enlightened principles of good governance adopted worldwide suggest that many practices which are not strictly required do nevertheless make for better laws, better societies, better democracy. In our specific case, where senators are appointed, not elected, the clear constitutional intention is to involve civil society in the making and passing of laws.”
He underscored several aspects of the bill he and fellow absentees considered abuses of the Constitution of Saint Lucia. In the particular instance, he went on, “the legislation at hand has profound, immediate and direct impact on the private sector and requires input from those likely to be most affected. Our voice is not a solitary one. At least two civil society institutions have written to communicate their discomfort.”
There were threats of litigation that never carried out, maybe because it is by now common knowledge that, especially in matters involving House MPs, the normally exceedingly slow grinding wheels of Saint Lucian justice can appear ossified. Then again, it may also have occurred to the short-term defenders of the Constitution that in their peculiar circumstances there was less to gain from going to court than there was from filling the air with seemingly indefensible allegations, embarrassing exposés, racist epithets, long ignored grievances, trigger words that hinted at impending violence, and noise noise noise.
The general elections on 26 July 2021 were conducted under State of Emergency conditions and COVID-19 protocols, albeit relaxed and tellingly unpoliced. If there were any who believed a change of government would’ve resulted automatically in an attitudinal adjustment, they soon had good reason to think again. Not only were the preelection-troublesome COVID-19 laws retained by the new government but in some instances their fangs were sharpened—until recently when the government revoked the State of Emergency. But then often what finally matters is not so much what was done but how. And perhaps more importantly, done by whom. It is now the turn of the beleaguered former government to do some opposition nitpicking.
In recent days the new administration’s revocation of the State of Emergency—while at the same time confining citizens in their homes— has been challenged. Such confinement, the opposition claims, are permissible only with an SOE in place. References have been made to Sections 12 and 14 of the Constitution. (Interesting to note, in some copies of the Saint Lucia Constitution Order 1978, Section 12 (3) (b) includes the words “by order of a court.” In others the quoted words have been deleted.
At this point I am reminded of the 2011 amendment to the Finance (administration) Act. Previously, the law permitted finance ministers to guarantee in principle particular bank loans, without House approval. The amendment put paid to that. At Section 41 (2) it reads: “A resolution of parliament pursuant to subsection (1) must give the full details of the amount guaranteed, the terms and conditions of the guarantee, the person or legal entity in whose name the guarantee is intended, and the object and reasons for the giving of the guarantee.”
What could be better? Alas, the immediately above is inexplicably followed by another clause that effectively makes the Consolidated Fund the finance minister’s private account. It reads: “The minister may grant a guarantee on such terms and conditions as he or she may think fit”—surely the mother of all contradictions.
During his campaign for office, Philip J. Pierre promised to take another look at the recommendations of the Constitutional Reform Commission, in 2015 debated in parliament, and moth-balled. Hopefully, our new prime minister will act on his word. As he had himself observed on the campaign trail, for too long have the people of this nation been abused by its politicians. Indeed one of his predecessors, now dearly departed, had prescribed a remedy. And it had nothing to do with more talk. Meanwhile, pending for some two or three years now is a suit by human rights attorney Martinus Francois that seeks a judge’s interpretation of the phrase “as soon as convenient”—lifted from long contentious Section 36 of the Constitution of Saint Lucia. Yes, dear reader, I hear you: Only on the Rock of Sages!
