Former Senators Express Concerns Over Rushed Legislative Process in Barbados Senate

She insisted that the committee stage of bills is not used appropriately to allow clause-by-clause discussion so that senators can raise any concerns, suggest amendments or seek clarity on the intention of each clause and the legislation.

“I don’t find that that procedure was carried out very well, and the stage that I expected from a theoretical perspective in the committee stage for the discussion on legislation, too often was absent,” the university academic pointed out.

But Dr Hinds also said she derived valuable knowledge and experience from being in the Senate, listening to “interesting contributions from interesting people”, and learning about the functioning of Parliament in a practical way while gaining knowledge on the procedures that need to be corrected.

She said she thought she represented herself well by bringing a more critical eye to legislation and thanked President Dame Sandra Mason for selecting her to sit in the Upper Chamber. Both she and Dr Brathwaite hailed the choices of the senators to replace them.

In a separate interview with Barbados TODAY, Dr Brathwaite, a former Ambassador to China, described his time in the Senate as “exciting”.

“It gave me the opportunity to better understand the governance of my country, understand the legal framework and how the laws are defined and developed; and also an opportunity to represent what I think were concerns of the average person,” he said.

“I would also say that it gave me the opportunity to put on the table an issue that has been of importance to my career and my development, which is a question of food security in Barbados. I was able to do that by a Private Member’s resolution that I brought to the Senate in June of 2022 . . . and had it debated by the entire Senate.”

Describing that as a momentous occasion, the food security advocate said he was able to make not only the Chamber but the whole of Barbados focus on food security, which he described as a weak point in the country’s development strategy.

But Dr Brathwaite also expressed concerns about the functioning of the Upper Chamber, zeroing in on the review of bills as they pass through the final stage to going to the Head of State for signature into law.

“Where I found there were differing views on bills and on proposals, invariably, there was no established mechanism, that these legislative procedures could go back and be revised,” he said. “Invariably, when issues are brought forward and we objected to clauses or recommendations of legislation, because of the constitution of the Senate where government senators were in the majority, even if we went to a vote we could easily be outvoted.

“Consequently, it creates for the Senate, a situation. . . where [when] there is a dissenting voice or opinion, these opinions do not go back for revision. There have been a few cases where a Leader of Government Business would say, ‘We are going to take this back to the Law Reform Commission’. But we had no evidence that these changes were made.”

He complained that the government never came back to the Senate to assure members that the changes were made.

Dr Brathwaite suggested that senators be given a guarantee that their objections were taken into consideration.

He also expressed concern that the government did not take the issues raised in the Auditor General’s reports seriously.

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