Legislative Council PutsConstitutional Case to Baroness Amos

The Elected Members of the St Helena Legislative Council would like to express their thanks to you for arranging the visit of the recent delegation from FCO to discuss their proposals for Constitutional change. The delegation’s visit has given us the opportunity to place the proposals into context in terms of the historical and cultural background into which they fit. We believe this has been helpful to the team.

From our side, we have also found it helpful to have the reservations you expressed in your letter of 21^st January 2003 explained in more detail and the opportunity to respond to them. We would like to assure you that we appreciate the depth of your reservations and feel confident that our proposals address them fully.

Recent history of St Helena has shown growing discontent with the current system and particularly with the involvement of the Governor in his role as Chairman of Executive Council. The public perception is that the Governor "manages" the political decision-making forum, and indeed, as Chairman, he has opportunity to direct debate towards the decision he wishes to see taken.

If a new system is to have real meaning and bring about real devolution of responsibility to the island, the decision- making forum has to be under the leadership and guidance of the Chief Minister. Without this, we question the effectiveness of the Chief Minister’s role and indeed the validity of the process.

Several times during our discussions, the terms "familiar with" and "comfortable with" were used by the FCO delegation in relation to the 2-tier system practised elsewhere in Overseas Territories. We accept that FCO may well be familiar and comfortable with this system but we feel that the proposed Cabinet system would meet the needs of our particular circumstances better.

St Helena simply is not the same as other Overseas Territories; we have no desire for Independence indeed, St Helena sees a long-term and closer relationship with the UK in the future. The detailed arrangements that will make up this relationship will have to be negotiated between the partner Governments. The St Helena Government needs to be free to put forward its own perceptions about the goals and priorities that the two Governments may be able to agree upon.

The island is in a crisis situation now, and in our recent public consultation on Strategic Objectives it was interesting to find that the public highlighted the importance of Constitutional change and the development of a more democratic government by placing it within the top 6 priorities. Constitutional change is seen as one of several essential building blocks to enable the island to move forward.

From our own public consultation on Constitutional Development held between September 2002 and today certain key issues were raised -

• The wish to be able to identify with a locally elected person as Head of Government;
• to have more open, transparent and accountable government;
• to have cohesive government firmly based upon consensus among Elected Members;
• to see the Elected Members given responsibility for the management of the island’s affairs;
• to see HE the Governor a step removed from the decision-making forum.

We feel that you should know that our decision to propose the Cabinet system was only taken after much soul-searching. It has been clear to us from the outset of the debate on Constitutional change that the UK government would support change to a 2 tier system of ministerial government and that proposals of a Cabinet system would cause them problems. It was not lightly that we decided upon the proposal for a Cabinet system as we were aware of your reservations. However we feel that our proposals meet the island’s unique needs and circumstances and address your reservations.

Although we have not reached agreement with the FCO delegation during their visit, we feel that the discussions have led to a better understanding on both sides. There has been a large measure of agreement on the proposals and you should be in no doubt as to our wish to find an agreed way forward to resolve the outstanding areas of disagreement albeit that these are, of course, the more difficult areas on which to find common ground.

A proposed time –scale has been agreed in terms of the process to bring in a new Constitution in time for the next General Election. We are grateful to the FCO team for the reassurance that, even with what we regard as a set-back in the process at this point in time, the overall aim remains to have the new Constitution agreed and enacted by July 2005. We certainly will play our part in working co-operatively with the FCO to

meet the target date.

The Elected Members will require the services of Mrs Quentin-Baxter as Independent Advisor until the new Constitution has been agreed by both partners and to this end, we trust that FCO will assist in whatever way they can. Elected Members will approach the St Helena Government to request funding from the Commonwealth Secretariat for Mrs Quentin-Baxter’s further advice and it is encouraging that the FCO delegation feels this to be acceptable.

Additionally, mention is made in the proposals of the need for the preparations for the change to begin well ahead of the introduction of the new Constitution – there will need to be training for Elected Members and the Public Service as well as a Public education programme for the Electorate before the elections are held. We look to FCO ‘s support of this vital element of the process.

We very much hope that you will consider our proposal favourably and look forward to hearing your views.