REVEALED: AG’S CABINET NOTE ON LG ELECTION

THIS is the Cabinet Note through which Attorney General Reginald Armour got his colleagues to agree to the extension of the one-year term of office of councillors and aldermen.

Armour took the Cabinet Note to the meeting of November 2, 2022, requesting that fellow ministers take a decision that would empower the Government to put off the Local Government election.

The Attorney General asked Cabinet to “approve and agree the making of a partial proclamation” by the President of certain sections of the Miscellaneous Provision (Local Government Reform) Act, 2022.

Upon the proclamation, the Government put off the polls for a year.

Faris Al Rawi, in his new role as Minister of Local Government, said the additional year would allow time to roll out reform in the sector.

But the dominant political talk was that the Government’s image was taking a beating on crime and poverty.

Since then, the Government has placed the crime hot potato firmly on the laps of the police chief, and has added $3.8 billion to the national budget, with major allocations for infrastructural works and social welfare benefits.

The postponement of the LG polls was challenged through the court system by activist Ravi Balgobin Maharaj, and upheld by the Privy Council, which ruled it was unconstitutional.

The British law lords said that “the essential characteristic of a representative democracy … is that representatives are chosen by popular vote.”

The majority judgement stated: “It is not for Parliament, still less the Government, to choose the representatives.”

The effect of the Cabinet’s action is that representatives were chosen, “not by the electorate, but by the Government.”

The Privy Council said the Parliament “conferred itself the power to decide the life of Local Government councils.”

Democratic values and the requirement of representative democracy “lie at the heart of the Constitution,” the law-lords stressed.

This is the Cabinet Note that led to that unconstitutional decision by the country’s leaders, several of whom are attorneys.

The note was made public by Member of Parliament Dr. Roodal Moonilal.