Will St. Vincent’s Parliamentarians ‘Hijack’ the Courts?
The political landscape of St. Vincent and the Grenadines is facing unprecedented turmoil as the parliamentary opposition vehemently denounces a newly proposed constitutional amendment by the ruling New Democratic Party (NDP) government.
The opposition leadership has labeled the move as the most “brazen, self-serving, power grabbing” piece of legislation ever brought to the nation’s parliament, arguing it subverts the judiciary, the electoral process, and the core of the country’s democracy.
At the center of the controversy is a proposed retroactive amendment to Section 26(1)(a) of the Constitution. The current law disqualifies anyone from being elected if they hold allegiance to a “foreign power or state”.
The newly tabled bill, which stands in the name of Godwin Friday, seeks to redefine this clause retrospectively from 1979 to explicitly exclude Commonwealth countries, such as Canada, from being considered foreign powers.
This legislative maneuver directly impacts live election petitions currently before the courts. The petitions challenge the election of Godwin Friday (Northern Grenadines) and Fitz Bramble (East Kingstown), held Canadian citizenship at the time of their nomination and therefore signed false statutory declarations.
The opposition says that the government is trying to hijack an active judicial process by retroactively changing the law to shield these two specific parliamentarians from legal jeopardy.
Opposition Senator Keisal Peters warned the public about the dangers of a government altering the constitution without consultation, stating, “If your actions were not invalid, why the need to validate it now?”.
The opposition highlighted that the electorate previously rejected similar constitutional changes during a 2009 referendum, voting overwhelmingly to leave the constitution as it is. Despite this, the current bill was introduced with only a week’s notice, a move the opposition likened to a “thief in the night”