The Executive

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to welcome you to another session in the continuing discussion of our existing Constitution. As you are aware it is our hope that after these discussions, we will all be in a better position to evaluate and understand our Constitutional provisions and to determine whether or not they need to be amended, and if so in what way.

We have had some excellent presentations and very informative discussions on the West Minister system of government and on Electoral Reform which will be very relevant to the topic we are discussing tonight. And since we have only a limited amount of time, I have no intention of going over the ground already covered in these discussions. Tonight, we want to have a look at The Executive Council in the Anguilla Constitution. Now while I said that I do not intend to repeat the information presented before, because our Executive is in a reality a miniature and our attempt at copying Her Majesty’s Government in the UK. I want to take a few minutes to let you know how that system works, only as far as the Executive is concerned.

In law the Queen is the head of the Executive but as a result of a long process of evolution during which the monarch’s absolute power has gradually declined. The Queen today acts on the advice of her ministers. And Britain is in fact governed by Her Majesty’s Government in the name of the Queen. If Britain is governed by HMG the question arises, well who is Her Majesty’s Government ? Her Majesty’s Government in the UK is in fact the body of ministers responsible for the administration of national affairs. That body of ministers is normally referred to as the Cabinet and comprises the Prime Minister and about 20 other ministers. The number varies depending on whose in power. The Prime Minister is appointed by the Queen is usually the person whose is the leader of the party that wins the most seats. In a general election; and all other ministers are appointed by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister. Ministers in charge of government departments are usually in the Cabinet are also referred to as Secretaries of State or may have special titles such as the Chancellor of the Ex-Checker. It is the Cabinet which is responsible for initiating and deciding on policy; the supreme control of government and the coordination of government departments. Cabinet ministers are assisted by Ministers of State, the Junior Ministers, and it is my understanding that usually after elections, something in the region of about hundred people are appointed and secretaries of state, junior ministers, and ministers of state. The Cabinet acts unanimously even when cabinet ministers do not all agree on a subject. The policy of departmental ministers must be consistent with the policy of the government. As a whole. Once government’s policy on a matter has been decided, each minister is expected to support it or resign. Individual ministers are also responsible for the work of their departments and are answerable to Parliament for all their departmental activities. The Prime Minister is in a unique position of authority because he has the majority support in the House of Commons and he has the power to appoint and dismiss ministers. Basically, this system applies here like you said in a miniature form. This system of government apparently works well for the UK but it must be borne in mind that there is no written Constitution and that the Constitutional provisions can be altered by an act of parliament or by general agreement to alter a convention thus permitting the Constitutional provision to be readily adaptable to changing political conditions. Secondly, this system of government has been in place for a long time and thirdly, the party system which is an essential element in the working of the Constitution and the established parliamentary procedures ensure that the system of government works for the UK. We have in fact tried to copy this system in some form, however, by contrast the Executive Council in our system of government is about 26 years old. I am not going to discuss the systems which apply before because I think we have been well documented by previous speakers; that is the systems of government which applied in Anguilla before 1976. The Anguilla Executive Council came into being formally in February 1976 and sine then they have been two attempts to improve it, in 1982 and again in 1980. Most of the changes between 1976 and to date have been cosmetic, like changing names, and changing Financial Secretary to the Director of Finance in 1982 and so on. But some of the changes have been very fundamental. Let us look at the Executive Council as it exists today. The executive authority of Anguilla vests in Her Majesty and is exercised on her behalf by the Governor. The Governor is normally required to consult with the Executive Council except on matters relating to defense, external affairs, international financial services, internal security, public service, unimportant matters and urgent matters. He can also ignore the advice of the Executive Council if he has the approval of a secretary of state. I want to point to you that because of what I have said relative to the functioning of the British government that is, while the government is in the name of Her Majesty, in fact, the government is conducted by the cabinet and secretaries of states, that in our Constitution, it would make absolutely no practical change whatsoever if wherever the word Her Majesty appears in our Constitution it was replaced by the words a secretary of state, is infact that is what happens practically. One of the more significant changes and a matter which remains controversial even today, as far the Executive Council is concern relates to the change of the tenure of office for members of the executive. The 1976 provision allowed the commissioner to revoke the appointment of the chief minister and appointed another elected member as chief minister if a motion that the assembly should declare lack of confidence in the government of Anguilla receive the support of two thirds of the elected members. When the Constitution was amended in 1982, the 1982 Constitution required the governor to dissolve the assembly and appoint a date for general elections. So the provision whereby the Commissioner could reappoint another elected member as Chief Minister is done away with. The 1982 changes to Constitution were made while the honourable James Ronald Webster was Chief Minister, most Anguillians declared at the time that this particular amendment was made for him and by him considering the fact that he had been removed from office as Chief Minister after a vote of no confidence brought against his government in 1977 and received two thirds support of the house of assembly and the commissioner at the time appointed the honourable Emile Gumbs as Chief Minister. Every politician in Anguilla who has been in opposition to the governments since then has declared that given the first opportunity they would change this provision, everybody, when they were in the opposition, have declared that this particular provision in 1982 Constitution would be changed. And the argument was that this amendment did not reflect what Anguillians wanted and that it was inserted to satisfy one individual. The 1982 Constitution was however amended in 1990 but the provision relating to tenure of office remains and remained unchanged. The truth is that Chief Ministers who are in fact the persons who lead delegations to London for Constitutional changes recognized the present provision increases his power and control on other members of the cabinet. Because they cannot remove him from office without removing themselves from office. While there is talk of change in opposition, when they are in opposition, there is never any talk of change by the government. The 1990 amendments to the Constitution also created a post of Parliamentary Secretary, and it is noteworthy that while all the provisions relative to the tenure of office, the oaths of office, oaths of allegiance, and appointment, apply in the same way to the parliamentary secretary as they do to other ministers, but the Parliamentary Secretary is not a member of the Executive Council, and in fact in our Constitution as it stands at the moment has no specific duties assigned to it. It is also noteworthy that while the 1990 Constitution increased the Governor’s reserve powers, especially as it relates to international finance, it also provides for the governor, Section 28, subsection 5 of the Constitution to delegate with the approval of Secretary of State to the Chief Minister or any other minister designated by him after consultation with the Chief Minister such responsibility for matters relating to external affairs, international financial services or internal security as the Governor may think fit. The question remains however, why is it that in twelve years successive governors have never considered any member of the Anguilla Executive Council capable of taking responsibility for any or all of these matters? It would be interesting to hear what the present governor thinks. The previous Governor told me if ministers are not taking their existing portfolios seriously, how can you assign more. I personally ask a minister of government how is it that nobody seeks to ensure that this provision of the Constitution is enforced? And his response was there is no such provision in the Constitution. I showed him the section. I happen to know that in fact that in 1990 when this provision was made, it was with the idea of training Anguillians to gradually take more and more responsibility. The hope was that as the years go by and I think it is no secret Her Majesty’s Government expects that sometime Anguilla will put it bluntly go independent. This provision was made, if like, to provide the training ground for the politicians. But in ten years nothing has happened and in fact because governors on occasion and sometimes by choice, do some of the work which in reality is the responsibility of ministers. The powers of the governor have in fact increased rather decreased. I am not sure that there is very much wrong with the composition of the Executive Council as it exists at the moment except as far as the Parliamentary Secretary is concerned, that position needs to be clarified and specific duties assigned. But there are two matters relative to the Executive Council that I think needs to be addressed and if we do, nothing else when the Constitution is amended, we should really look at these two areas. The first of these relates to the extent to which the Executive Council monopolizes government decisions and relegates the house of assembly to rubber stamp. We discussed this very briefly at the last meeting and it is essential that the Executive Council as a whole relative to the functioning of government, something has got to be done about it. The dictatorship of the executive must in our next Constitution be abridged. The other aspect of the executive that I think must be reviewed is the method of selection of the Chief Minister. At present time, the governor appoints the Chief Minister, the elected member who in his opinion commands the respect of the majority of the other elected members. In practical terms, if four of the elected members go to the governor’s office and say they support any one of their group to be Chief Minister, that person must be appointed as Chief Minister by the Governor. But in one second after he has been appointed the same man cannot be removed from office by the four people who appointed him or by the governor or by anybody else actually. He need not for example, even name the three people that went with him and support him in his cabinet, he can choose others. And the only time that he can be removed from office again is if there are general elections again. It is not impracticable but when the Chief Minister who is very strong willed, we can have not only a dictatorship of the executive over the entire government system, but we can have in fact a dictator created by a so call democratic process. I don’t want to get into the actual functioning of the Executive Council, the way the Executive Council carries on its business, it is another whole long discussion but there is certainly room for improvements as far as that goes; and I not going to discuss the Deputy Governor but I just want to say as far as the Governor goes, the appointment of a Governor, to the extent that we continue to have a governor appointed from the UK in the future. I think it is going to be important that the Anguillian people, some body, some mechanism to set in Anguilla where before that person is appointed, we can satisfy ourselves that he/she understands that he is the governor of Anguilla and not the British government representative in Anguilla.

I don’t think I should take up any more time on the executive, I am sure that you will have some questions, comments and ideas and in conclusion, I want to appeal to all Anguillians to take an interest in the discussions which are taking place relative to the amendments to our Constitution. I know a lot of people still think that the committee is writing the Constitution and people keep asking me what amendments we have made relative to this matter and I can help trying to convince people that we are not writing the Constitution ourselves and in fact we are awaiting your views and ideas and inputs before any recommendations for amending the Constitution will be made. So if we got to make this thing as democratic as is possible, we need your inputs.
Thank You, and I welcome your comments.

Franklin B Connor

Mr. Franklin B. Connor

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