Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Ronald and Labour


I will tell you what happened.  You take from my story what you want.  Feel free to discard the rest.
In late 1980, I was in the last of my four years as Magistrate, Registrar of the Supreme Court, and Registrar of Companies of Anguilla.  Reginald Lucie-Smith was the Attorney General, and at that time the only other lawyer besides me in the public service.  Ronald Webster’s party was victorious at the polls.  He was the new Chief Minister.  He dropped into my office at the Courthouse unannounced.  He explained that he had a little job for me.  Reggie was on vacation.  In Reggie’s absence, Ronald decided that he wanted me to draft a law for him to make trades unions illegal in Anguilla.
His mind was on St Kitts and Antigua.  During the 1940s, 50s and 60s, strong trades unions were, with the help of the British Labour Party, established in those islands.  They formed political parties and sought political office.  They were successful and pervasive.  It took some forty years before any other political grouping challenged their hold on power.
Ronald was determined not to allow this to happen in Anguilla.  He had previously been forced out of office by a splinter group of his party.  He considered he had crushed them in the general elections of earlier that year.  The tourist industry was beginning to take off in Anguilla.  More and more workers were going into that industry.  He was concerned that they might become organised.  He recognised that worker organisation might pose a threat.  He feared trades unionism becoming a contending political force in Anguilla.  His solution was to pass a law banning trades unions.  I told him I would have a go at drafting it for him.
After a few days, I went to see him empty handed.  I told him that I had done the research.  Britain had signed up to a Geneva Convention that made it illegal for a country to criminalise trades union activities.  The Constitution was against him.  It protected the fundamental right of Anguillians to associate together in unions.
Ronald was not fazed by my failure.  He had a back-up plan.  He would create a Labour Department that would be so pro-worker that no trades union would ever be needed in Anguilla.  He would make sure that his administration was so protective of workers’ rights that it would never occur to them to form a union.
And so was born the Labour Department Act and the Fair Labour Standards Act.  Ronald next secured the passage into law of the Social Security Act.  Employers and workers contribute to a fund.  The fund provides sickness benefits and pensions to workers in the private sector, like the arrangements then existing only for public sector workers.  And so, Ronald accidentally completed Anguilla’s workers’ protection scheme.
Minimum Wage Law
Until about the year 1978, Anguilla offered its people little by way of wage labour.  The first modern hotels (as distinct from family-owned and -run guest houses) were Cinnamon Reef, Cul de Sac and Malliouhana.  These pioneers were obliged to train their own labour force, since there was no previous hospitality industry to do so for them.  Indeed, Leon and Lyane Royden famously bought the Cul de Sac hotel from the aging Ruth Goodnow to use as a training school for their staff for their soon-to-be-opened Malliouhana Hotel.  Once the Malliouhana opened, they sold the Cul de Sac as no longer needed.
Hotel workers accepted whatever salary was offered by these early employers.  Previously, the women had been unemployed housewives, or, in the case of the men, salt pickers, fishermen and construction workers.  If the wage offered was unsatisfactory, the worker could always resign.  There were plenty others to take his or her place.
As the years passed, a corps of trained front office, housekeeping, and restaurant staff grew in the island.  Grumbling began about wages and other work conditions.  Starting in the mid-1980s, political parties seized on the minimum-wage issue for electioneering purposes.  Both the island’s two main political parties took up the refrain.  They both promised to introduce minimum wages during their term of office.  Despite setting up committees to conduct research and produce reports, nothing concrete came of it.
What was preventing the passage of the appropriate law?  The cynic answers that the big hotels were major contributors to party campaign funds.  In this way, they captured each administration.
A little research reveals another kettle of fish.  It seems that the major (foreign-owned) hotels pay well above the average, when share of gratuity is factored in.  Every hotel and restaurant guest pays a 10-15% tip, service charge or gratuity, on top of their bill.  This money is typically pooled and controlled by a workers’ committee at each place of employment.  The gratuities are usually distributed to the workers on a point-based system.  This share of gratuity forms a substantial part of each worker’s remuneration.  In many months, I understand, it exceeds the basic pay.
Many locally owned hardware stores, groceries, restaurants and guest houses are fair and generous to their workers.  But there are exceptions.  Here is where most employee complaints come from.  Foreign hotel owners don’t have the vote.  Local employers do.  Guess which ones each government is more afraid of offending by introducing minimum wages.  Each time there is an initiative to introduce minimum wage legislation, it is lobbying by local employers that stops progress.
The Gig Economy
Ronald’s intention was to have the Labour Department stand between worker and employer, and always favour the worker.  To this end, mandatory mediation and conciliation procedures were introduced by his new labour legislation.  A Labour Commissioner was appointed, empowered by law to descend on any allegedly offending employer and demand to see the books.  The Labour Commissioner could disrupt the work of the employer and call meetings of the workers.  Through “conciliation” the Commissioner could persuade employers to make concessions satisfactory to the workers.
If the Labour Commissioner was not successful in mediating the dispute, there was a statutory provision for the Minister of Labour to intervene to “conciliate” the dispute.  The Minister of Labour was usually the Chief Minister, a powerful office.  The Minister of Labour was the person who issued work permits, a necessity for foreign-owned hotels and restaurants.  There were occasions when members of staff were dismissed for gross misbehaviour such as stealing, and either the Labour Commissioner or the Chief Minister forced a backdown and reinstatement of the worker.
Due to these and other abuses, employers cast about for a method to free themselves from the more tiresome aspects of local labour.  Replacing them by foreign labour was not a good solution.  The Minister of Labour could not always be persuaded to issue the needed work permit in time.  The solution hit on was to alter the relationship between worker and employer so fundamentally that the oppressive provisions protective of workers no longer applied.  Convert long-term employees into short-term employees on annual contracts.  At the beginning of each new tourism season, make previous employees apply for employment afresh.  They might or they might not be offered employment, on the same or different conditions.  This solution required official approval, or at least condonation.  Some foreign employers got it.
Anguilla is not the first country to find employers replacing full-time staff with short-term contracts, usually of one year.  This arrangement is often referred to as the “gig-economy.”  A gig, an abbreviation for “engagement”, originally described short-term employment in the entertainment industry.  A musical band going on tour would require temporary electricians, stage carpenters, and electronic technicians, to accompany them.  They were said to be doing a gig.  At the end of the gig, these short-term employees would be released from their employment.  A gig worker was not a permanent employee, but instead classified in employment law as an independent contractor.  Consequently, there were no pension costs or holiday pay obligations as with permanent employees.  Unless the Social Security Act was amended, as was done in the UK but not in Anguilla, there was no obligation for the employer of an independent contractor to contribute to the social security scheme.
Slowly, hotel by hotel, Anguillian hotel workers were re-classified as “self-employed” and placed on one-year or shorter contracts.  Any recalcitrant worker need only be endured until the end of the contract and then, without risk or cost, be permanently let go.  The fierce anti-firing procedures originally developed by Ronald became redundant. 
This arrangement is of no benefit to the worker.  It is solely created for the benefit of the employer.  It does not benefit society.  In the event of termination after several years of steady employment, no severance-type benefit applies, since this was merely an annual contract.  If the hotel is sold, the new owner is not obliged, as the law requires for permanent employees, to take on the employees on the same or better terms, since these are annual contracts. 
This annual contract arrangement would be illegal under the provisions of the Fair Labour Standards Act, if the Act was strictly enforced.  The Act was quietly ignored.  There was no trades union to take up the interests of the workers.
Government squeezed one concession out of the major employers.  Without special provision in the law, an employer of an independent contractor is not legally obliged to pay social security contributions.  No such provision was made in the law in Anguilla.  Even though it was not strictly legally required, the short-term contract employers in many cases agreed to continue to make the social security contributions in return for enjoying the benefits of being able to classify their workers as independent contractors and not as employees.  And so, with a minimum of expenditure and cost, most of Ronald’s scheme for protecting Anguilla’s workers was dismantled.
The new Labour (Relations) Act of 2019 is touted to bring changes to employer/employee relations in stages in the coming years.  Will it bring real reforms to Anguilla?  Or, will it become dormant like so many other legislated social reforms before it?

Thursday, December 19, 2019

Medicinal Cannabis


An 80-year old friend was in terrible arthritic pain for years.  Recently, he told me he is almost entirely cured.  I asked him how.  He said he was cured since Government legalized medicinal Cannabis.  He claims he imports his Cannabis oil, without a prescription, through St Martin.
I had to smile.  I am glad that he has got the pain relief he needs.  But, where, I asked him, did he get the idea that Cannabis oil was legal in Anguilla.  All parts of the Cannabis plant are prohibited.  That is the definition of Cannabis.  It “includes any plant of the genus cannabis and any part of any such plant (by whatever name called)”.[1]  Importation or possession of any part of the plant is prohibited.  It does not matter if it is the flowers, or the leaf, or the branch, or the root, or a mere extract, like Cannabis oil.  It does not matter if the oil contains THC or only CBD.  THC is not part of the definition.
I never heard of the law being changed in Anguilla.  My friend explained that he checked with the Permanent Secretary (or PS).  The PS sent him the link to the instrument approving the use of medicinal Cannabis.  He forwarded me the link he says he was sent:
I checked it out.  It is the minute of a meeting of the Executive Council (ExCo, or the Cabinet of the government of Anguilla) in July 2018.  Towards the end of the minute there is an item headed, ExMin 18/382.  This reveals that ExCo did discuss exempting Cannabis-based products for medicinal purposes under the Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act.  They agreed that persons with prescriptions from doctors in the UK, the USA, Australia, Canada and EU countries would be allowed to import Cannabis-based products for personal medicinal use.  They agreed that the A-G’s Chambers should draft the necessary regulation and exemptions.  A regulation simplifies matters.  It is perfectly legal, and it would avoid any debate in the House of Assembly.  In this way, the reform would be made by a simple regulation signed by the Governor.  It must be published in the Official Gazette to become law.
But this decision by ExCo did not by itself change the law.  Without the new regulation, the importation of medicinal Cannabis oil into Anguilla with or without a prescription remains completely prohibited and illegal.  My friend must have misunderstood what he was being advised.  I am quite sure that no PS in Anguilla would confuse an ExCo minute with an amending statute or regulation.
Given government’s decision a year and a half ago to move forward, why has this sensible piece of law reform not been completed?  No reasonably informed person today can legitimately continue to hold an objection to the use of medicinal Cannabis.  It is a simple reform to implement.  There are ample precedents from around the Caribbean that are available.  Since 2016, this reform has been made in the Cayman Islands.  Puerto Rico and Jamaica have medicinal Cannabis programmes in place.  St Vincent since July 2019 issues licences to cultivate medicinal Cannabis.[2]  So, there is no shortage of good precedents to follow.  This could not be the obstacle holding up this reform.  What is it, we would all like to know?
And, while we are on the topic, we can ask what is holding up the legalisation of the recreational use of Cannabis?  A Bill for discussion purposes was drafted by the A-G’s Chambers and published since July 2018.  The only objection that was raised was that it was ambiguous and self-defeating.  The proposed amendment said that possession of small amounts of Cannabis for personal use was legal, but the A-G had a discretion to prosecute if, in his opinion, the possession was for the purpose of supplying.  But possession for the purpose of supplying is already illegal under the Act.  Only possession of small quantities for personal use is decriminalised.  Unless the A-G thinks he can prove the possession was for the purpose of supply, there is no point in giving him a discretion to prosecute in the absence of any evidence.  Such a discretion is susceptible to misuse by police officers.  Why give the A-G such a discretion when it is only his opinion that the possession was for the purpose of supplying?  Surely, by now, after nearly a year and a half, a more acceptable wording could be found.
And, while we are on the topic, there is an additional question.  Why was there no provision in the Bill to wipe clean all past convictions for possession of small quantities?  Keeping a record of convictions for something now considered inoffensive only serves to blot the record of too many of our young people.  The continued hanging around of the record of these convictions means that an application for a police certificate of good character will be unhelpful.  Such records hamper applications for visas and for employment by our young people.  It is only fair and just in these cases that the record be wiped clean.



[1]      Section 1 of the Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act, RSA, D45.


Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Anguilla Blacklisted



On 2 December 2019 Gerald Darmanin, French Public Accounts Minister, announced that France is adding Anguilla to its blacklist.[1]  It appears this will come into effect on 1 January 2020.[2]  The present list includes Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, the US Virgin Islands, and twelve other countries.  Now, they will add Anguilla, the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands and Seychelles.[3]  This French blacklist is additional to the EU list, which does not include Anguilla.
But why is Anguilla being put on the French blacklist when the EU appears to be satisfied with our compliance?
Generally, reasons for being on a European blacklist include classification of the country as an offshore regime; lack of tax transparency; base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) measures; or failure to investigate foreign aid fraud.  Although we do incorporate IBCs, we have not been a significant offshore regime for years.  More tax-free companies are formed in the State of Delaware or the City of London in a day than are formed in Anguilla in a decade.  Our taxes are heavy and transparent.  Anguilla signed on to BEPS in March 2018, and since then we have continued to implement BEPS minimum standards.  We have received no request to investigate foreign aid fraud.
Being on the French blacklist will result in certain additional punitive measures.  These include an enhanced withholding tax rate of 75% and rebuttal of application of the French participation exemption regime.  If you are a Frenchman living in Anguilla, your dividends will be taxed at 75%.  There will be a direct impact on your relationship with the French banking sector.  Your French bank will not permit you to transfer money that you need to live on, to pay your children’s school fees, or to conduct your business.  French tourists will not be able to access their funds through a local ATM or pay their restaurant and hotel bills with credit cards.
Other measures will include new liabilities for e-commerce platforms; enhanced penalties in relation to tax fraud cases; a ten-fold increase in penalties for auditors, banks, tax lawyers, tax advisers and other intermediaries accused of helping to put into effect certain fraudulent schemes and operations (and the burden of proof is shifted to the intermediaries to prove their innocence); the introduction of a naming and shaming process; and new plea and transactional procedures in tax fraud cases.
Jurisdictions can get added to the French blacklist if they do not provide information quickly enough, thus complicating tax investigations.  Or, the information provided may be insufficient.  France has been carrying out investigations into 500 companies following the Panama Papers scandal which exposed illegal practices in the offshore finance industry.  It seems 15% of the 500 cases were registered in Seychelles.[4]  It is not known what percentage, if any, were registered in Anguilla.
All efforts to find out from official sources the reason for Anguilla being on the blacklist have proven futile.  Some insight may be derived by looking at the published information concerning other French blacklisted countries.
Panama was originally on the French National List of Uncooperative States and Territories (ETNC), but it was removed in 2012 when it became fully compliant with EU demands.  It was returned to the list in 2016 after the release of the Panama Papers.  Despite the efforts of its government to explain that the Panama Papers is ancient history, it remains on the ETNC.
The official reason for including Seychelles on this list is the lack of information about some companies previously requested by French tax inspectors.  It is not known whether Anguilla has failed to respond to information requested by the French.
In 2017 American Samoa and Guam were added to the EU blacklist for failing to apply automatic exchange of financial information; not signing and ratifying the OECD Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters; not applying the BEPS minimum standards; and failing to commit to addressing these issues by 31 December 2018.  They got themselves removed from the blacklist but have now been reinstated.  Presumably, this is because they failed in their undertakings.  It is not known if Anguilla is in the same category of failure.
The official reason France has given for adding the Bahamas to the blacklist is its failure to respond to requests for information in a manner that is satisfactory to them.  Yet, there is not a single French tax-information request to the Bahamas that remains outstanding or that has not been dealt with.  Additionally, France has announced this action while failing to invoke the dispute-resolution process contained in the relevant Convention.[5]  The Bahamas Minister of Finance has been raging against France’s announced move.[6]  What is the point in us engaging in these multilateral organisations if individual members take unilateral action without dialogue?[7]
Could the answer to the question at paragraph two above be that, because we have no direct income tax, we are thought of as a tax haven, an offshore regime?  Never mind that our customs duties, other indirect taxes, government fees and public utility charges are among the highest in the world!  Everything we consume must be imported from outside.  Just last month, the Water Corporation of Anguilla increased the cost of using 999 gallons from $40.00 to $72.98.  With new environmental levies imposed on us, even the air we breathe now seems to be taxed.
Could it be our failure to implement a register of beneficial ownership?  The Europeans have long threatened the British for failing to force us to establish such a register.  Meanwhile, a 2018 study by Transparency International reveals that the project is a failure in Europe.[8]  While companies in Europe are obliged to enter names on the register, no G20 country is properly implementing the High-Level Principles on Beneficial Ownership.  No European country has the capacity to verify the information on their register.  Without the ability to do this, the information by itself is useless.[9]  What, other than bullying, is the point of imposing this on Anguilla.
We know that Boris is responsible for making any declaration of war on Anguilla’s behalf.  But elections and Brexit have him distracted.  Meanwhile, can we ask our Premier to tell Gerald Darmanin to stick one of his new Barracuda-class submarines where it hurts?  At least, threaten him with a yellow vest!
Whatever we do, it appears there are more woes in sight next year for Anguilla’s embattled banking and financial system.



[5]      Tw wit, the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Assistance in Tax Matters, which The Bahamas signed in late 2017 to facilitate tax-information exchange and cooperation.

Wednesday, December 04, 2019

Fixed Date Elections



Anguilla’s general elections are constitutionally due in the first part of next year, 2020.  That will be five years since the last general elections held on Wednesday 22 April 2015 and the present Administration taking office.  So, what will be the date for the next elections in 2020?  That is the question people are asking me.
The exact date is for the Premier (formerly Chief Minister) to select.  There are some constitutional rules which apply to set the outside date.  He is always free to tell the Governor to call the elections at an earlier date if he sees some advantage for his party.
Sections 63 and 64 of the 1982 Constitution of Anguilla tell us what the latest possible date is.  They read as follows, where relevant:
Prorogation and dissolution
63. (1) . . .
(2) The Governor, acting after consultation with the Chief Minister, may at any time, by Proclamation published in the Official Gazette, dissolve the Assembly.
(3) The Governor shall dissolve the Assembly at the expiration of five years from the date when the Assembly first meets after any general election unless it has been sooner dissolved.
General elections
64. There shall be a general election at such time within two months after every dissolution of the Assembly as the Governor shall by Proclamation appoint.
The previous Assembly was dissolved on 4 January 2010.  Elections were held that year on 15 February.  Five years later, the Assembly was dissolved again on 26 February 2015.[1]  Elections were held on 22 April 2015.  The Assembly held its first sitting on 11 May 2015.
So, under the sections 63 and 64 rules, the Governor must dissolve the Assembly, at the latest, at the expiration of five years from the date when the Assembly first met, ie, by 10 May 2020.  The general elections must be held at the latest within two months, ie, by 9 July 2020.  These sections of the 1982 Constitution have never been altered or amended.  They remain good law.
On Tuesday 23 July, the Anguilla House of Assembly passed into law a new Elections Act.[2]  This gave a fixed date for the next general elections.  The section in question is section 34.  This reads where relevant,
Fixed date for general elections
34. (1) Polling day for the next general election after the passing of this Act will be the first Monday after the 5th anniversary of the last general election.
(2) . . .
(3) The Governor, acting on the advice of the Premier, may by Proclamation provide that the polling day for a general election in a specified calendar year is to be earlier or later than the day determined under subsections (1) or (2), but not more than 2 months earlier or 2 months later.
The first Monday after the fifth anniversary of the last general election (22 April 2015) would be 27 April 2020.  If this were good law, that would mean that the latest date for the next general elections to the Anguilla House of Assembly would be on Monday 27 April, 2020 (subject to the discretion given to the Premier to pick a date up to two months earlier or two months later, ie by 26 June at the latest).  But, this new section 34 of the new Elections Act conflicts with sections 63 and 64 of the 1982 Anguilla Constitution which are set out above.
Hon Pam Webster has repeatedly pointed this out both in the House of Assembly when the Bill for the new Elections Act was being debated, and in articles written in the Anguillian Newspaper.  See for example, her article “We have Fixed Date Elections – The AUF Lies Again – Pam’s Update – 16 August 2019” in The Anguillian Newspaper for 19 August 2019.[3]
The reason for the error is clear.  The new draft Constitution is what will authorise elections to be held on a fixed date.  That provision has not yet been passed into law.  If the new Constitution had been adopted, the old Constitution would have been replaced in its entirety and section 34 would have been valid.
An Act of the Anguilla House of Assembly cannot alter or amend the Constitution.  Section 34 of the Act is ultra vires the Constitution.  It is null and void.  At some point, the Administration will have to go back to the House of Assembly, with egg spilling from its face, to repeal section 34.  What an embarrassment!

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Government's New Draft


Government’s Draft Constitution for Anguilla of 11 November 2019
Presentation to FCO Team by Don Mitchell, CBE, QC,
The various sections in the latest version of Government’s draft online Constitution which appear to be problematic in relation to both the democratisation process and the effort to improve public standards are:[1]
(1) Section 14A will expressly limit the right to marry to a man and a woman.  Same-sex marriage will be prohibited.  It is my opinion that such a limitation is morally wrong.  Concepts of fairness, equality and freedom from discrimination lean to affording the right to all of us, including our gays and lesbians.
(2) The original section 30(2) provided that when the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition do not agree on three (3) names for appointment to the office of Deputy Governor, all applications should be forwarded to the Secretary of State.  This has been altered to provide that all names shall be forwarded to the Governor for his decision.  This is an error in that it is the Secretary of State and not the Governor who makes the decision.  The Secretary of State may well consult with the Governor, but it is not the Governor who makes the decision.
(3) Section 35 now provides for a minimum of five (5) ministers of government.  There is no guarantee that the number will be increased to the recommended six (6).  The minimum should be six (6) with a transitional provision to cover the period before the Electoral Boundaries Commission does its work.  This has become necessary since the Amendment Order in Council and the Elections Act of earlier this year.
(4) Section 42(1)(a) gives the Governor responsibility for external affairs, “subject to subsection (4)”.
Subsection (3) gives the Governor power to delegate certain matters of external affairs and internal security.
Both the original section 42(4) and the Government’s proposed amendment are in error in providing for the Governor to delegate to a Minister responsibility “notwithstanding anything in subsection (3)” for the conduct of external affairs including,
(d) tourism and tourism-related matters;
(e) taxation and the regulation of finance and financial services; and . . .
None of tourism, tourism-related matters, taxation or the regulation of finance and financial services, is a matter of external affairs.  They are intrinsically internal affairs.
All matters of public finance are governed by Chapter 10 which contains mandatory standards and procedures that must be followed by Government.
Financial services are to be the responsibility of the Financial Services Commission, a constitutional body with independence of both the Governor and the political directorate.  This is the preferred way to ensure independence of such important services.  Any attempt to bring financial services under ministerial control exposes Anguilla to the risk of corruption and mismanagement.
Paragraphs (d) and (e) have no business being in subsection (4).  They should be deleted.
(5) The proposed revision of section 53 reduces the minimum number of elected members of the Assembly to eleven (11).  The minimum should be thirteen (13) with a transitional provision to cover the period before the proposed Electoral Boundaries Commission does its work.  This has become necessary since the Amendment Order in Council and the Elections Act of earlier this year.
(6) The proposed revision of section 54 removes the qualification (for election to the House of Assembly), for a person born in Anguilla, of residence in Anguilla for three (3) years prior to nomination.  A majority of Anguillians thought this was an important qualification to ensure candidates are familiar with Anguillian society and rules.
(7) The revised version of section 65, which deals with the “Right to vote at elections”, bears a note that it is “under consideration in relation to residence requirements”.  The original section was carefully drafted to ensure that only Anguillians ordinarily resident in Anguilla would be qualified to vote. 
There are presently thousands of persons who have never been resident in Anguilla, or who have long emigrated from Anguilla, to be found on the Voters List.  Under present rules they can never be removed from the List until they have died. 
A new Enumeration Year was proposed at subsection (4) to clean up the List.  Government has without explanation removed from both the Constitution and the recent new Elections Act any provision relating to a new Enumeration Year.  The AUF Administration appears to be insisting on retaining the present questionable List.
(8) It is unclear what the purpose of the proposed new section 65A is.  Its main purpose appears to be to revive the old prohibition against returning officers voting (because their presence was required at the polling station throughout election day).  The new section 68 extends to all election officers the opportunity to take advantage of advance polling.  That is the reason that the prohibition was originally recommended to be removed.
(9) Section 66 of the original draft Constitution, which provides for laws as to elections, has been altered without explanation to remove a constitutional requirement for the regulation of campaign financing.  This is a retrograde proposal.  The newly passed Elections Act also excludes it.  Anguillians are agreed that the present system of unregulated spending on election campaigns is an encouragement to bad behaviour.  This reform is part of the effort to improve standards in public life.  Removing from the Constitution even the possibility of introducing constitutionally protected campaign financing regulation into our election laws is a retrograde step.  It is not in accordance with the thrust of the new Constitution to promote higher standards of public life than presently exist.  Without such constitutional protection, any stand-alone statute would be problematic.  The new Elections Act needs to be amended or replaced.
(10)     Section 67 deals with elected members.  One of the principal reforms originally proposed is that the House of Assembly should consist of nine (9) district representatives and four (4) members elected at large, resulting in a total of thirteen (13) elected members.  Not only would this increase in numbers encourage deeper debate on legislative proposals, it would ensure that with a Cabinet of six (6) members, the Assembly would not be dominated by members of the Executive.  Government now proposes to amend the original section 67 to remove the provision for Anguilla to be divided into a minimum of nine (9) electoral districts, and to retain, at least for the present, the existing seven (7) as the minimum number.  While it is appreciated that the wording permits the future expansion of the Assembly, it is felt that it would be preferable for the wording to reflect the recommended minimum of nine (9) districts with a transitional provision.
(11)     Chapter 9 concerns institutions protecting good governance.  This is the principal measure for ensuring high standards in public life.  The Chapter heading in the Government draft bears a note that “the number and types of commissions and commissioners have not yet been agreed.”  It would be regrettable if there was any reduction in the number and types of Commissions or Commissioners.  The original draft of the Constitution already gives flexibility in suitable cases for combinations to be made.
(12)     Section 93 provides for the Financial Services Commission.  The original draft was in error in providing that the Commission would have “such specific functions and powers and a board to be appointed by the Governor all as may be set out in a law.”  There are not intended to be any directors separate from the members of the Commission.  The members of the Commission will take the place of the previous members of the Board of Directors.  In order to ensure independence from political interference, the section should provide for the Chair of the Commission and the four other members to be appointed by the Governor without any requirement to consult with anyone.  Section 102 contains the general provisions regarding Commissions.
(13)     Section 99 dealing with Anguillian status appears to have been extensively revised, but it is unclear what changes have been proposed.
(14)     Section 109 contains a note to the effect that the section is “Under review to determine whether Electoral Commission is preferable.”  The section as originally drafted provides for the Supervisor of Elections to be given protection from political interference by placing him/her and his/her officers under the direct supervision of the Governor.  It is that separation from political influence that is the objective.  If it is agreed that in addition to the role of the Governor, there is benefit in providing for an independent Electoral Commission, that would be unobjectionable other than that it would be adding belt to braces.
(15)     Section 111 (dealing with the need for disclosure to the Assembly of any proposal to dispose of or deal in public assets) bears a note that it is still “under review”.  This provision was viewed as important by many Anguillians, and it would be regrettable if it was limited in any way.
(16)     Chapter 10 deals with Public Finance.  It is a concern that the Chapter heading in the Government draft Constitution bears a note that the Chapter is still “under review”.  The Chapter was originally designed to be a principal tool for ensuring high standards in matters of public finance.  The Chapter is important in its entirety. The whole point of Chapter 10 is,
(i)           to improve standards of public life in the area of public finance;
(ii)         to take the present rules for the management of the public finances out of common legislation such as the Financial Administration and Audit Act, and the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and enshrine them in a Constitution.  The present Acts are, according to the Chief Auditor, routinely ignored, and
(iii)        to introduce into the Constitution most of the provisions of the originally UK-proposed draft Anguilla Public Finance Order 2015.  As a result of negotiations between the FCO and Government, this was never brought into effect as an Order in Council.  Any attempt to weaken Chapter 10 is to be strenuously opposed.
It is much to be hoped that as part of this reform exercise, the FCO will ensure that the Acts and supporting regulations necessary for giving effect to the Chapter 9 watchdog institutions be prepared and put in place immediately after the new Constitution comes into effect.  This is essential if there is to be any improvement in standards of public life in Anguilla.  These include (a) an Integrity Commission Act, (b) a Freedom of Information Act; (c) a Public Service Commission Act; (d) an Appointments Commission Act; (e) a Complaints Commissioner Act (or Ombudsman Act); (f) an Act for the Remuneration of the Speaker and the Members of the House of Assembly; (g) an Anguillian Status Commission Act; an Electoral Boundaries Commission Act; and a new Elections Act.
These provisions in the Constitution depend for their efficacy on the related Acts and Regulations being passed into law.  Without them, no substantive reform will have been achieved either by merely mentioning them in the Constitution or by enacting inadequate versions.
18 November 2019