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Hon. Vanterpool: Gov't is too big…needed to reduce size!
The Attorney General (AG) informed members that the current Chairman’s contract would be expiring in April and there were questions as to whether or not he would be seeking to extend it. The AG said that Mr. Harris wrote a letter indicating that, as of that time, he did not intend to do so. He indicated to the SFC that Mr. Harris was ill and was also off-island at the time of his presentation before the Committee.
The Minister for Communications and Works Mark Vanterpool asked the Attorney General to explain whether the Law Reform Commission was close to being completed. To this, Dr. Malcolm stated that Law Reform is an unending exercise and that there is always room and scope for the law revision and consulting exercises. He told the SFC the real question is, whether or not there were intentions to have it on an ongoing basis, or on a more periodic basis, bringing their resources as and when significant reform exercise are needed. The AG said in every democracy, if your laws are to remain up-to-date then there must be a law reform.
Honourable Vanterpool inquired whether the bulk of the reform that was being worked on in terms of the long outstanding issues were being fixed and if indeed most of it was finished. The AG expressed that since the 2007 Constitution there were a number of laws that needed to be up-dated. Some of them needed to be revised significantly in order to bring them in line with the fundamental rights of the Constitution. Dr. Malcolm, a Jamaican national, stated that significant work still remains to be done and that it comes back down to logistics and how you do it.
Vanterpool: Government is too big & we needed to go through this exercise to see how we could begin to reduce the size of this government!
The Minister for Communications and Works Vanterpool told the SFC that he had been looking out for some areas in the budget where Divisions and Departments may be significantly reduced with austerity measures and this looked like one based on what he was hearing. The fourth district representative said, “half a million dollars needed to go somewhere else”.
The Member for the third district Hon. Julian Fraser RA queried whether the Minister for Communications and Works suggested the amalgamation of the Law Reform with the Attorney General’s Chambers. To that, Minister Vanterpool stated that he was suggesting based on what he was hearing about the Commission’s work being finished and that Government needed to close that division. Mr. Vanterpool said, as the AG suggested, the Territory needed some law revision work done but it can commission the work on an as need basis. He expressed that Government tends to lean too much in luxury and letting things stay where they are.
Territorial At Large member Archibald C. Christian expressed that the work of the Commission is well documented and that the Commission has done an excellent job from inception. He expressed his concern that his colleague and himself were trying to find the most cost effective way to ensure that Government runs efficiently.
However, the Minister for Works Vanterpool said that he did not have any apologies for what he said. He stated that he was saying that Government is too big and they needed to go through the exercise to see how they could begin to reduce the size of government. Minister Vanterpool said that it is too big and there were areas where it has set up for specific purposes and the Law Reform Commission has achieved its purpose. He further explained that it has further purposes to achieve in the future, but as of now they needed to determine as a Government that it needed to be shut down and that the expenses should not be shifted all over the place because Government don’t have the money. The fourth district representative told the SFC … “we should stop trying to facilitate things that are not necessary and start seriously thinking about reducing the size of this Government.”
Meanwhile, the Deputy Premier and Minister of Natural Resources and Labour Dr. Kedrick Pickering interjected by saying that in the absence of the Premier, he would not want the record to reflect that this is a policy decision that has been made by the Government.
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