Representatives for Grand Cayman’s less-populated voting districts said this week they have consistently been shut out of Cabinet meetings for the past two years, despite what they believe is a constitutional right to appear at those meetings once every three months.
However, according to a response to the matter from Cayman Islands Premier McKeeva Bush, the representatives have not been shut out – they simply must make a request to attend Cabinet if they wish to do so.
North Side MLA Ezzard Miller raised the issue during a news conference held Monday.
According to the Constitution Order, 2009 in Section 47(3): “Where an electoral district is not represented in the Cabinet, the member or members of the Legislative Assembly representing that district shall be entitled to attend a meeting convened by the Cabinet once every three months”.
Mr. Miller, who is not a member of Cabinet, said he has only been invited once to make a presentation there in preparation of the 2009-2010 budget.
Responding to Mr. Miller, Premier Bush said: “It is not for Cabinet to request this meeting with either North Side or East End elected members, but for them to request the meeting.”
East End MLA Arden McLean, also the lone representative for his district and not a Cabinet member, said he too has only been invited to attend once, prior to the budget review.
“They [referring to Cabinet] have interpreted [the Constitution] to mean they have to invite the members,” Mr. McLean said. “It is my view that, upon request, [the Cabinet] has no alternative but to invite the member.”
Mr. McLean said he has not made any requests to attend Cabinet meetings given the government’s stance on the matter. He said since the budget appearance, he’s resorted to writing letters to government ministers to request services and attention for his district.“Some have responded better than others,” he said.
Opposition Leader Alden McLaughlin, one of the principal drafters of Cayman’s 2009 Constitution, said the idea with allowing MLAs to attend Cabinet every three months was to make sure all district representatives have their voices heard, particularly in the Sister Islands. During Mr. McLaughlin’s administration, the representatives of Cayman Brac and Little Cayman were not members of Cabinet. In the current government, Deputy Premier Juliana O’Connor-Connolly is an MLA from Cayman Brac.
“The concern was that … there’s a real risk that the issues there don’t get addressed at all if Cayman Brac has no say in Cabinet,” Mr. McLaughlin said.
One man, no debate
Despite a motion related to single-member constituencies being voted down by the Legislative Assembly without debate, Mr. Miller vowed to continue his efforts to institute ‘one-man, one-vote’ in the Cayman Islands.
Mr. Miller said the Constitution mandates ‘one-man, one-vote’ rather than the current system, where electors can vote for multiple candidates, depending on where they live. In Mr. Miller’s district, voters can only select one candidate. However, in George Town and West Bay, voters can select four MLAs to represent them.
“I intend to bring a similar motion to every meeting of parliament until they decide to do it, right up to the dissolution of parliament. There are several ways that I can bring it,” Mr. Miller said.
Premier Bush said his government would not assent to the changes Mr. Miller wished to make.
“I’m not going to change what I know works for something that I don’t know and that will also cost the country a lot more money to implement and run,” he said. “Do the people want the change? There was recently a petition calling for single-member constituencies that got less than 500 signatures.”
Mr. Miller’s argument hinges on a section of the Constitution that says an elector is “entitled to vote at any election in that district for an elected member of the Legislative Assembly”. He said that, in addition to his legislative manoeuvres, he is seeking a legal opinion from the courts on that section of the law.
Mr. McLaughlin, an attorney, said Tuesday that he disagreed with Mr. Miller’s interpretation of the Constitution regarding single-member districts, although he said the opposition party does support ‘one man, one vote’ in principle. “I don’t believe there’s a court anywhere that would interpret it that way,” the opposition leader said, referring to Mr. Miller’s assertion that single-member voting districts were now mandatory in the Cayman Islands.
Premier Bush is of a similar view. “[Section 92(1) of the Constitution] in no way prohibits multimember constituencies,” Mr. Bush said. “If the former government wanted single-member constituencies, then they should have put a time frame for changing the system to single-member constituencies.”
Because members of the ruling United Democratic Party did not speak against Mr. Miller’s motion in the Legislative Assembly, the opposition People’s Progressive Movement did not speak in favour of the motion although PPM members did vote to support it. Mr. Miller said the PPM’s silence was “excusable to a certain extent” because of parliamentary protocol where the opposition tailors its debates according to the government’s arguments.
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