Concerns raised
Given the situation being faced as it relates to COVID-19 here in Barbados and across the world, Parliament yesterday approved the Emergency Management (Amendment) Bill to make provision in that piece of legislation, to be able to declare a public health emergency and establish guidelines to deal with such.
Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Dale Marshall, while wrapping up the debate yesterday afternoon, added that under the legislation, the Cabinet may delegate to the Prime Minister the power to make directives as may be required in the public interest. But, this provision did not sit well with the Leader of the Opposition, Bishop Joseph Atherley.
Marshall, in defending the move, told the House that “there is nothing sinister behind” that provision, explaining that it is “purely out of necessity”. The AG said it is not only the appropriate thing to do, but a practical measure that should be supported.
“This situation is very fluid and orders may need to be made in respect of a whole raft of things. It can happen at a moment’s notice, it can happen in the dead of the night, it can happen in the early hours of the morning. The orders you would appreciate, that might be required to be made are myriad and I couldn’t easily tell you what the entire raft of them would be, so given that, it would not always be possible to convene a meeting of Cabinet... With this kind of emergency, we cannot afford to hamstring ourselves in this way and therefore it is proposed, Sir, that Cabinet should be able to delegate to the Prime Minister the power to make such directives under this legislation as may be required in the public interest,” he stated.
Later, while in Committee, Bishop Atherley “objected strenuously” to the powers being given to the Cabinet and the Prime Minister under the legislation. He told the House that while he offered support for the Bill in general, that aspect did not find favour with him. Atherley said that while he was not suggesting there was anything sinister about the provision, he was concerned that there was already a Cabinet dominance in the House of Assembly.
“That always exists in our kind of parliamentary system, but it exists to an exaggerated extent in our current circumstances here in the Parliament of Barbados. The Cabinet, under the measure that we are approving here today, is being given major powers; this is under the Emergency Management Act. The Cabinet is being given major powers to issue orders. Now we want further to give to one embodiment, and I respect the office of Prime Minister, and I respect the holder of the office, but what we are seeking to do here is to put in the hands of one individual and in my view, an inordinate amount of power to give directives, having been delegated those powers by the Cabinet of Barbados,” he said.
Atherley added, “I do not know that we need to do that in this day and age with all of the technology that we have.”
He made the point while noting that it was stated earlier in the debate that the Cabinet met on Thursday using Zoom conferencing and hinted such could be employed if an emergency required it. As such, he said he would not support the placing of that “inordinate amount of power in any one pair of hands” and in essence extending prime ministerial power, which he said was unnecessary. Atherley said it was imperative then that they provide for consultation and validation before any directive can be issued by the holder of that office.
“... I believe in the preservation of constitutional powers. If we have to face an emergency, we should find better mechanisms to deal with things like that, rather than simply place all of these powers in the hands of one person in a context where you are operating under emergency situation,” he stressed. (JRT)