Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit says he held “constructive” discussions last week with Sir Dennis Byron, the former president of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), who has been appointed as the sole commissioner advancing the efforts toward electoral reform in Dominica.
“It was a very constructive engagement where we looked at some of his recommendations. The recommendations we really have no difficulty with them. I have expressed to him, reminded him of the urgency of getting this thing out of the way,” Skerrit told a news conference.
Late last year, Sir Dennis had proposed presenting the first phase of his report by the end of November with the Parliament tabling the Register of Electors legislation and the plan to enact it in January this year.
Sir Dennis had written to Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, as well as the then Opposition Leader, Lennox Linton, indicating that he was “working towards expediting the presentation of my recommendations for the improvement of the electoral process in the Commonwealth of Dominica”.
In the November 6 letter, which was also sent to the leader of the United Workers Party (UWP) and copied to the chairman of the Electoral Commission, Duncan Stowe, the prominent international jurist with over 50 years of judicial and related experience, explained also that he would be presenting the report in two phases.
“Phase I will deal with the registration of electors and Phase II with the election process,” Sir Dennis wrote in the letter a copy of which had been obtained by the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC), adding “I am in the final stage of the Phase I report”.
The UWP had demanded electoral reform ahead of the December general election and its new leader, Dr. Thompson Fontaine, told party supporters that they should be prepared to take to the streets “in the not too distant future” to demand that electoral reform takes place in Dominica.
The UWP, along with the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP) boycotted the December 6 poll that Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit called two years ahead of the constitutional deadline in support of their demands that electoral reform should have taken place before any fresh general election.
Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit told reporters “ideally the government would like to go to Parliament before the next session of Parliament…before June 30” and the government’s position had been outlined to Sir Dennis.
He reiterated that his administration is “very committed” to the electoral reform process “and we look forward to the report coming from Sir Dennis Byron.”
CMC/
