Vexed Bermoothes

The quality of Bermuda’s law making has declined dramatically in the past few years. There is little in the way of a legislative vision and agenda – the Throne Speech rarely predicts what Government will actually do in the coming year. That seems to be dictated by the personal whims of whomever is currently dominating the PLP internal struggles.

Major promised initiatives like freedom of information and sustainable development never make it out of drafting, while other surprises like the current racial quota law come out of left field.

Consultation seems to have been abandoned. In some cases, public consultation is based on a vague briefing paper instead of the actual draft law. In other cases, detailed objections are simply ignored (as in the case of the Bermuda Bar’s clearly voiced concerns about the Immigration Act amendments regarding land ownership for Bermudian/non-Bermudian couples).

The quality of drafting is poor and getting worse. Well-intentioned laws are causing unintentional negative consequences, leaving room for abuse, or being prone to accelerated obsolescence.

Compounding this, parliamentary procedure is now frequently used to parachute in legislation at the last minute or to stifle debate. Given that most of our parliamentarians are not lawyers, it is no surprise that the quality of our law making is in decline.

If we are serious about this, some basic changes are in order to modernise our parliament. All parliamentary schedules should be available to the public far in advance. All draft laws should undergo a consistent public consultation process, including posting on the Government’s public website (see example here), with major concerns and their mitigations documented. A list of backlogged legislation should be maintained (for example, the many amendments that arise from Bermuda’s obligations under international treaties). All draft laws should be negotiated by bipartisan committee before they are allowed to proceed to a vote in Parliament.