CHARLESTOWN, Nevis - THE members of the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) who resigned their positions on the Constitution Boundaries Commission (CBC) on Monday (Nov. 16) said they could no longer be part of that body because their integrity was being compromised.
Hon. Vance Amory and Hon. Michael Perkins, who were part of the Commission constitutionally mandated to review the number and delimitations of constituency boundaries in the Federation, made their reasons known at a press conference at the Cooperative Credit Union Hall in Charlestown on Tuesday.
Hon. Amory, the former Premier of Nevis, said the manner in which they were being asked to discharge their duties “almost smacks of indecency in terms of the haste in which we were required to do so”.
“My belief was that when one is acting on behalf of the people one must do so in good faith. One must ensure there is inclusivity, that there is as much consultation and wide reference to the issue as possible so that whatever work we would have done and the outcome of that work would not have disenfranchised anyone in anyway, but would have done it in a way which would show reasonableness and equality and fairness across the board.”
The CBC produced a report in June which was tabled in Parliament and later found to be unconstitutional by the court. Subsequently, the CBC was reconvened earlier this month to make new recommendations for boundary changes.
According to Amory, after the reconvening, he tried to get additional information on some basic grounds; information which he believed would be relevant and timely to inform his own decision making. He said the fact that he was not seeing any effort being made to look at that additional caused him to have concerns about the workings of the CBC.
He pointed out that the commission was asked to look at data which he considered outdated - the 2001 census - and he believed there should have been other factors that could have been taken into consideration. He said the Constitution also makes reference to those factors, which is the Commission was to look at the equity in the number of inhabitants within the constituencies.
“Yet that does not have to be the overriding or only factor which guides the process of making changes or giving consideration to the constituency boundaries.”
The former Premier also said that had the changes been agreed on at this time, with elections constitutionally due no later than March 2010, it would have caused frustration to persons who would have been displaced and candidates who would have been focusing in the past in particular locations and inhabitants.
“These are not things to be taken lightly, because our function is to ensure that as representatives of the people that the people be seen to come first, and that we do not do things to create any frustration.”
Hon. Perkins said the report prepared in June recommended changes but in a simple manner. He said changes would have seen the transfer of entire the polling divisions from one area to the next.
“By doing that we would be drawing lines across constituencies and hopefully not creating too much doubt in the minds of voters. That is the position the Commission took, but that report was declared null and void by the court. Back then, we had a lot of time and because of the simplicity it was easy to do.”
According to Perkins, since the reconvening the Commission has been told they need to operate differently based on the Court’s judgment. He said one of the key changes was that the CBC could no longer look at the voters’ list.
“We had to strictly look at numbers of inhabitants in accordance with the Constitution. Right away that posed a question – how do we determine the number of inhabitants, or the population?
“We were advised that we will use the 2001 census. I had a major difficulty with that for the obvious reason that from 2001 to now a lot has changed on both islands.”
The former CBC member said a casual observer would notice the huge population growth but the Commission would need help to ascertain with some certainty the true population.
“We were told that the Department of Statistics has done rough estimates but we should not rely on that information.”
Perkins said he enquired if it were legal to rely on the 2001 census and was told by Legal Advisor to the Commission Dr. Kenny Anthony that “commission should not rely solely on census data. It should consult experts who are able to provide demographic profiles on communities during the intervening years of a census”.
According to Perkins, that part of Dr. Anthony’s opinion in itself captured the difficult they faced.
“Our position was quite clear. We want to be correct in what we were doing. We did not want to open ourselves to further criticism and possible litigation. So that was very instructive to me and it played on my mind to a large extent in making my decision to tender my resignation.”
He continued: “When I looked at what we needed to do to do a good job this time around, I became more convinced that the task ahead was virtually impossible given the time remaining that the Commission would be constitutionally constituted since the life of Parliament ends next month and with it the life of the commission.”
Hon. Perkins also pointed out that addresses on the voters’ list do not necessarily correlate with the data from the census. He said this would have created a problem after the CBC prepares a report and identifies new constituencies and that report reaches the Electoral Offices. Perkins explained that since the Electoral Offices would have been guided by the description of these new constituencies, they would then have to match what is on their voters’ list to what is in the new constituencies.
“I am not convinced that it would have been possible to do that without going out in the fields and actually doing an exercise to identify where persons are living. That would have been quite difficult if not impossible…and because of that difficulty it means that some would have had to do, at times, a very arbitrary exercise to prepare the final voters’ list. That caused me much discomfort and contributed to my decision to resign from the Constituencies Boundaries Commission.”
Perkins also told the press conference that another factor he was not comfortable with was the fact that he felt the work of the CBC was being influenced by external factors.
“I am of the view that the commission is a totally independent body and should seek to do its work in a transparent way. The first time we waited eight months to get a report from the Technical Committee before we prepared our first report. This time around we are being asked to produce a report in a matter of weeks. If we are to do our work correctly we would have had to call on a number of experts like surveyors and statisticians to provide us with raw up-to-date information. So, I became uncomfortable over this haste to complete a report in a couple of weeks.”
Leader of the Opposition in the Federal Government, the Hon. Brantley, who had recommended his fellow CCM members to the commission, said he needed to seek advice on whether it is appropriate at this stage to talk about reappointing persons to a commission “to make such fundamental changes in the context of an election that is upon us when the life of Parliament has less than one month remaining”.
Hon. Brantley however said that if such persons were to be appointed they would have to be part of the Federal Opposition. He pointed to Hon. Shawn Richards of the People’s Action Movement (PAM) and Hon. Patrice Nisbett of the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP), but said it would have to be determined whether either is acceptable and whether either is desirous of acting.
“I could also appoint myself, but at this stage, before I’m advised on the matter, I won’t indicate on any degree of specificity what action we will take.”
The life of the current Parliament expires on December 16.
