Abandoned agenda

Not long after coming to office in 2017 and debating a new budget, the Minnis administration took an 11-week break from Parliament, and is today still subjected to criticisms for that decision, which made it appear ill-prepared to adequately manage the people’s affairs and lacking the sense of urgency the task demanded.

Perhaps the thinking was the government needed time to draft legislation to bring to the House.

Now into its final year of the term, the Minnis administration has taken similar action. Two weeks ago, after passing the 2021/2022 budget, the government adjourned Parliament for 13 weeks.

The House is not due back in session until September 22.

This is surprising given that much of the legislative pledges the government made are unfulfilled, and major initiatives it only recently promised to bring to Parliament have not yet been introduced while some groundbreaking bills that were tabled remain shelved.

With time running out on the Minnis administration’s term, one would have thought it would have continued its legislative work throughout the summer months to improve its record of achievement.

In this space in May, we observed that four years after assuming office, the government was substantially behind in coming anywhere near to achieving the “ambitious agenda of reform and modernization” outlined in its Speech from the Throne.

We also observed that even before Hurricane Dorian and the COVID-19 pandemic – crises which the prime minister said are responsible for derailing much of his government’s plans to date – there was no evidence that the Minnis administration was on an impressive legislative course.

The focus, according to Attorney General Carl Bethel, who spoke repeatedly to the issue, was on bringing legislation to safeguard our jurisdiction as a sound and reputable financial services center, and keep The Bahamas from being blacklisted by powerful industrialized nations, which have continued to move the goalpost.

There was no expectation that in an election year the government would pursue electoral reform. An Independent Electoral Commission and Boundaries Commission, a term limit for prime minister and a system of recall for non-performing members of Parliament are all broken promises.

But only weeks ago, the government was still insisting that several major bills will soon receive parliamentary focus.

In February, Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis said, “The government is in the process of now completing legislation to bring to Parliament to legalize medicinal marijuana, so that medical marijuana will be grown by Bahamians here, utilized and exported.”

Ahead of the budget communication in May, Minnis repeated that the Medicinal Cannabis Bill, 2021, was about to be introduced and debated in Parliament.

That did not happen.

Minnis later told reporters he did not know when the bill will be tabled as the government was fine-tuning the components of the bill to guard against abuse.

As he often does when faced with direct questions he seemingly has no interest in addressing, the prime minister deflected, saying the government was focused on improving the economic conditions of Bahamians.

Another bill that was expected in Parliament prior to any extended adjournment was the Medical Emergency Bill, which had repeatedly been promised by the attorney general, and, we understand, already drafted.

“We are looking to see if we can craft a Medical Emergency Bill that will capture pandemics in the future and allow for limited control measures, sector-specific or island-specific or agent-specific control measures,” Bethel said last October.

In February, the attorney general said his office was completing the bill, which would replace COVID-19 restrictions.

“… We are very, very close to having a post-emergency orders bill and that will allow the prime minister to have an advisory committee [with] opposition members, government members, medical professionals on it, to advise the minister so that in a sense the political directorate on both sides would have a say at the advisory committee level and, of course, there would be parliamentary oversight,” he said.

Again, no such bill has yet been tabled or circulated in the public domain.

For the last 15 plus months, The Bahamas has been under a state of emergency with the all-powerful competent authority (the prime minister) making determinations on the withdrawal of our civil liberties, he says, to curb the coronavirus and save lives.

As the time passed, the prime minister seemed to become increasingly comfortable with the dictatorial powers.

Two weeks ago, the attorney general said the government is seeking to end the state of emergency in The Bahamas when the current state of emergency expires on August 13, although he said, “everything depends on how we behave ourselves as a people”.

He noted too, “the mere fact that the House has adjourned beyond the expiration date does not prevent the governor general in his discretion, should he feel that the emergency persists, to issue a new proclamation, summon the houses and allow them to debate whether or not to extend the proclamation.

Such a proclamation would last for 14 days absent a decision by the houses to extend the proclamation.

Of course, we know that while formally and constitutionally the declaration is made by the governor general, he would merely be carrying out the prime minister’s wishes.

In the absence of a state of emergency and a bill to regulate behavior in an ongoing pandemic environment, the government would have no legal authority to direct the public to follow any dictates.

Other bills

While the Medicinal Cannabis Bill and Medical Emergency Bill were expected, other promised legislative initiatives were less likely to be introduced this late in the term given the controversial and complex nature of those bills.

In November 2017, the prime minister declared in Parliament: “My government will make changes to the Immigration Act to ensure that all children born to Bahamian women, single or married, out of The Bahamas are automatically (conferred citizenship).”

He clearly meant The Bahamas National Act.

It appears the Minnis administration will end the term without making this a reality.

Law Reform and Revision Commissioner Dame Anita Allen has worked on legislation to address immigration, citizenship and asylum issues.

While it is reasonable to expect that the drafting of such a measure and the consultation on the bill would take a considerable amount of time, the government’s inability to walk and chew gum as it regards managing the pandemic and addressing other weighting issues speaks volumes about its focus, will and diligence.

In January, the attorney general told reporters The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill will be brought to Parliament this year.

It would be surprising if the government brings the bill when Parliament convenes in the Fall. So close to a general election, the Minnis administration would not want to trigger a public debate on the sensitive immigration and citizenship issues.

Many Bahamians, already in an anti-FNM mood, already feel that their country is being taken away from them by foreigners. These are the kinds of issues that sink governments at the polls.

Likewise, the promised Campaign Finance Bill is not likely to see the light of day this term, although the attorney general repeatedly claimed it will be brought to Parliament.

In January, he told us that the bill was being finalized and would be brought soon, but he said the names of political donors would still be kept private and forwarded to a special commission.

Bethel said political parties would be required to have an accountant, but each candidate would not be required to, something he said was proposed in a version of the bill drafted under the Christie administration.

“We are tweaking it and trying to make it something that’s not prohibitively expensive for individuals,” the attorney general said.

“It is very important not to discourage people who want to offer for public service by making the process so expensive that you put yourself in the position where only the rich can run; and the draft that had been worked on by the previous government, I thought that this was a rich man’s charter.”

Similarly, the government’s promised anti-corruption legislation has received no parliamentary attention, although it was introduced in the House of Assembly in 2017.

The Minnis administration had hailed the Integrity Commission Bill as important legislation signaling the fulfilment of a very important pledge to strengthen the country’s anti-corruption regime.

It also introduced the Ombudsmen Bill in 2017.

But both those bills have been shelved.

Unclear

We were not the only ones taken aback by the long summer recess called in an election year when so many important bills had been foreshadowed. 

One Cabinet minister told us that it caught him by surprise as well.

If the prime minister does not call an election before September, the government still has time to work on its legislative agenda, but it would for sure stay clear of controversial measures.

We are not sure if from day to day the Cabinet even knows what will happen next.

When we asked the attorney general in May what the government’s legislative focus will be for the remainder of the term, he could not say, adding that was for Cabinet to decide.

Given that Bethel’s legislative projections have been off on multiple occasions it was a safe, albeit telling, response. 

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