The House of Assembly currently faces no task more urgent than getting constitutional reform right. The decisions made in the coming months will shape the Virgin Islands’ future for generations, and they must not be taken lightly.
We were therefore pleased when legislators publicly debating the Constitutional Review Commission report last month reached for high ideals or candidly wrestled with important practical questions. At other times, however, we were disappointed by some members’ political grandstanding.
Moving forward, we hope to see much more of the former approach and much less of the latter. We also hope to see full transparency.
The CRC report, which is the product of months of extensive public consultation across the territory, is not just a bundle of lofty aspirations. It represents the considered views of Virgin Islanders, belongers and other residents from all walks of life.
For this reason, legislators must not dismiss it lightly. To do so would be to ignore the very people they were elected to serve.
At the same time, the 57 recommendations in the 288-page document are not set in stone. Some of them may prove more idealistic than practical; others may simply not work in the VI context.
But the great majority of the report’s recommendations are sound ideas that should help take the territory toward greater autonomy while accelerating the decolonisation process that the premier is rightly pushing so hard.
The House — which is now charged with choosing which recommendations to accept and then creating its own report ahead of negotiations with London — is right to debate such issues thoroughly. That is what democracy demands.
What democracy does not demand — and what it cannot tolerate — is secrecy. For that reason, we were disappointed on Sept. 26 when the HOA moved its constitutional reform discussions into a closed-door committee session, which subsequently recessed and is scheduled to resume Oct. 13.
At a time when transparency and accountability are sorely needed, shutting the public out of such an important debate sends exactly the wrong message.
Kudos to Opposition Leader Myron Walwyn for saying as much. And kudos to the CRC itself for recommendations that would do away with the secrecy surrounding the HOA’s routine committee sessions — which themselves are a relic of colonialism.
The future of the territory’s governance is not a matter for politicians alone. It is a matter for the public. The CRC understood as much when it crisscrossed the territory to hear directly from residents. The House should now honour that spirit by keeping its own deliberations as open and inclusive as possible.
As the territory works toward decolonisation and greater self-governance, the community deserves nothing less than a transparent, thoughtful and honest conversation.
The CRC has laid the groundwork. Now the HOA must carry forward the reform process — wisely, thoroughly and in full view of the people.