Premier Dr the Honourable Natalio Wheatly has reiterated his sheer opposition to the concept of suspending a country’s constitution.
“Let me just speak about the whole concept of suspending someone’s constitution. I don’t agree with it. In any way, shape or form. I do not agree with the United Kingdom or any other government suspending another group’s constitution. It is fundamentally undemocratic”, he said.
“The whole concept of suspending a constitution is a flawed concept that the United Kingdom, in my view, should abandon”, Dr Wheatly added.
At the time, Premier Wheatley was fielding questions from the press surrounding the possibility that issues raised in His Excellency Governor John Rankin’s first Quarterly Review to the United Kingdom on the implementation of the COI recommendations, could prompt a suspension of the BVI’s Constitution.
While Wheatley did not say that such an outcome was likely in this instance, he asserted that the issue of constitutional suspension remains a major concern.
“I think everybody should be worried about the concept of our Constitution being suspended because of course it is a reality… The Ordering Council is there. There was a recommendation from Sir Gary Hickenbottom that our Constitution be suspended. The concept has not been completely abandoned. Everybody should be concerned about it”, he stated.
Despite this, Wheatley argued that suspending a country’s constitution is unlikely to have the desired effect as, ultimately, it will come into the hands of the people of the Virgin Islands to handle their own affairs.
“You can’t impose democracy on someone. Even if you suspend the Constitution, the people still have to live here and we still have to deal with our own affairs. When you suspend the Constitution, at some point you have to implement a constitution and you still have to deal with the people. The people will have a right at some point, just like in the Turks and Caicos, to elect a government and this government will have the power to make laws and amend laws… The government will have to do so in collaboration with the people who have elected them, and the people they represent”, he said.