This week, once again, I saw a media interview in which the journalist was making ‘probing’ questions as to whether or not a newly elected area representative (AP) feels disappointed that he was not ‘rewarded’ with a ministerial portfolio after having won in a UDP stronghold. … sigh….I’ve been saying it for years, but let me try to be as succinct as I can this time.

Here goes: “The less Area Representatives appointed to Cabinet, the BETTER FOR the people in terms of checks and balances against an incumbent prime minister and his government.”

The Long Story

Section 40(2) of Belize’s Constitution sets a limit that says no more than 2/3 of elected members of the majority party could become ministers.

There’s an old paraphrased saying derived from the words of GK Chesterton that says: “Don’t ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up”.

You should ask: ‘Why were such limits established?’ As you can see on in Elliot Bulmer’s Constitutional Brief (September 2019, p. 8, see HERE), the original idea behind this ‘fence’ was to provide an in-built oversight mechanism, whereby ‘backbenchers’–not being members of Cabinet–would be free to criticize and hold their ‘own’ Party to account. The idea was to minimize the ‘payroll vote’.

Is the Fence too Low?

That was the idea. However, with more than 60% being able to form Cabinet, one has to ask: “Do we think that the 2/3 is too high of a threshold?”

Enabling more than 60% of the party’s APs to form Cabinet diminishes this ‘theoretical’ power and independence that the backbenchers should have. In this current scenario with 26 PUPs in Parliament, that allows for about 17 Cabinet appointments, and only about 9 ‘backbench’ overseers.

Furthermore, EVEN IF, in theory, these 9 backbenchers would have voted with the current UDP Opposition of 5 APs, they still wouldn’t be able to outnumber the majority. Therefore, in a case of a super majority, the Fourth Estate should be encouraging MORE backbenchers, as opposed to wondering if an area representative feels disappointed that he wasn’t “rewarded”.

The Plot Thickens: Anti-Defection

But it gets even worse. See, in 2001 the Constitution was amended so as to include a crossing-the-floor (anti-defection) provision. Regulars to my writings would already know that this has been a pet peeve of mine.

Notice my use of the words “in theory” above regarding the backbenchers’ so-called ‘oversight’ powers. By right, the anti-defection provisions should have been limited to Cabinet members due to their ‘collective responsibility’, but when one reads section 59(2)(e) of the Constitution it says:

“A member of the House of Representatives shall also vacate his seat in the House […] if, having been a candidate of a political party and elected to the House of Representatives as a candidate of that political party, he resigns from that political party or CROSSES THE FLOOR.”

Unfortunately, the Constitution doesn’t define the Belizean parameters of what is to be deemed ‘crossing the floor’, but Westminster Parliamentary convention defines it this way:

“An action in Westminster-style parliaments where a Government or Opposition member of parliament refuses to vote with his or her own party.” There’s usually a convention that says the Member would be able to vote against his party line with ‘permission’. How nice of them.

My position on anti-defection remains that we need to amend the Constitution to allow for legitimate “dissent” to not be treated as “defection”, otherwise the whole idea of Parliamentary debate, supposedly on behalf of the citizens who hired them, becomes a joke.

ALL HAIL THE KING

Look, let’s recap. POINT NO. 1: The ‘fence’ of limiting the number of Members that could fill Cabinet was designed for oversight purposes, but, in Belize, with it being as high as 2/3 (66%) that fence is mostly ineffective, especially when there’s yet another supermajority; If I may quote again from Bulmer (2019, p. 7), which states:

“The power to appoint members of the legislature to ministerial office gives the head of government (whether a president or prime minister) leverage over the legislature. Supporters can be REWARDED, and opponents and critics sidelined. This PATRONAGE POWER may WEAKEN the legislature as a co-equal branch of government and WEAKEN the SEPARATION OF THE POWERS.” ….. You should let that sink in. Seriously.

POINT NO. 2: Even if we kept the fence “high” (lets say at 33% or 1/3), we still need to address this ‘anti-defection’ problem. Unless we address these things, we might as well start singing: “All hail the King!” because we’ve basically given a great deal of power to the head of government.

Power Broker and Power Broking

As far as this SYSTEM is concerned, this is all about power and power broking, folks. A popularly elected AP that is not a member of Cabinet is not as easily ‘controlled’ by the head of government.

In a functioning parliamentary system we could say the following:

“[Not being given a Ministry] “may … make [the Area Rep] less dependent on the head of government, and therefore better able to resist executive autocracy” (modified quote from Bulmer 2019, p. 6).

TO CONCLUDE

To summarize, the more power given to the Head of Government, theoretically speaking, the less remains with the oversight mechanisms and, by extension, less with citizens. The reverse is true.

So, please let us stop missing the ‘forest’ for the ‘trees’. Systematically speaking….[yes….I’m talking SYSTEMs and institutions and not so much about ‘personalities’ here]. … Systematically speaking, we need to address these holes in our system.

(a) Are we okay with more than 60% of elected party folks being able to form Cabinet knowing that this is many times about power broking in Parliamentary SYSTEMS (speaking generally)?; and

(b) What do we have to say about amending this anti-defection provision in our Constitution?