Big job ahead
Editorial
After reading the Report of the Special Select Committee on the Report of the Constitution Reform Commission one thing is clear, a great deal of work remains to be done by the National Assembly and the legal draftsmen. The committee could not resolve its differences on the electoral system and this remains to be settled by the national assembly with the help of legal experts. But apart from this many proposals and recommendations for constitutional change are still "inadequately expressed for the purposes of drafting" as the committee itself recognises in the introduction to its report. They recommend that a team of draftsmen be appointed to produce the draft reformed constitution and that the national assembly should consider the appointment of a parliamentary team to work with the drafting team. Take the proposal on the creation of an upper house of parliament for example. The Constitution Reform Commission had recommended as follows: "It is recommended that Parliament should consider the option of establishing an Upper House consisting of representatives of each Region and civil society. Such a second chamber should have its power carefully defined so that it would not be able to frustrate the will of the elected Lower House, and would be prevented from initiating money Bills or Bills aimed at altering the Constitution." The Select Committee considered this recommendation and agreed to submit it for discussion by the National Assembly. But of course, here as in other cases, the devil will be in the details. How large should the upper house be, how will it be constituted, exactly what will its powers be? A certain amount of further discussion is required here (and consultation with other interests?) followed by legal drafting. And take the proposal on the right to education: "The State must have an obligation in respect of education, and included in that obligation must be the recognition of the cultural diversities of the communities and the need of an appropriate curriculum." Attempting to operationalise this will be a nightmare for the parliamentary team and the draftsmen and perhaps later will provide serious problems of interpretation for a court. There is a tendency in the report to want to please every interest by building castles of words which on closer examination may prove to be somewhat fragile. A constitution is to some extent a statement of ideals but there is a limit to what can be achieved by mere constitutional prescription. If a formulation along those lines becomes law, for example, could an ethnic group argue that the schools must teach its original language in the curriculum? Many commissions were proposed by the commission, the committee has done some work on this and, cognisant of human resources problems has whittled them down to five or six new ones. Once again, this committee has operated under very severe time constraints because of the one year lost after the Herdmanston Accord was signed before the commission was set up. A formidable amount of work lies ahead, the National Assembly has to decide a few remaining issues, the constitution has to be drafted and approved by the assembly and then some parts of it at a referendum, the Elections Commission formula has to be finalised and the commission and the secretariat put in place. The year 2000 is going to be a busy and testing year for our parliamentarians, and perhaps for all of us.
|