Jan 19 - ERG Urges Parliamentary Reform To Brexit Inquiry
Following the Chief Minister’s and the Deputy Chief Minister’s oral evidence in London recently, the House of Lords Select Committee Inquiry exploring the implications of Brexit for Gibraltar has been urged by the Equality Rights Group to extend the system of parliamentary democracy on the Rock.
A spokesman for the Group said: "Along with others, ERG was invited by the Select Committee to make a submission for its consideration. An invitation which we agreed to accept, and the submission has now been published by the UK Parliament online. It is also available for reading at ERG’s website via the News section at equalitygib.org.
"In a nutshell, ERG recognizes the substantial quantitative political evidence provided by both the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister on behalf of Gibraltar. ERG highlights, however, that one of the qualitative issues arising from Brexit is the necessity of parliamentary and constitutional reform to allow for not only frontbench but also backbench democracy. This follows not only the clear decision by the United Kingdom to exit the European Union and all its frameworks, but also the stated aim of Theresa May to make a firm commitment to withdraw from the European Convention of Human Rights for the 2020 General Elections. The scenario exposes, in ERG’s view, the inadequacy of our own present parliamentary and constitutional structures whereby Executive immoveable parliamentary dominance in effect curtails accountability and scrutiny. This is in stark contrast to the ample and intricate millennial Westminster system, for which Brexit was plainly designed.
"Additionally, ERG questions why the premise for the 2006 Constitution (‘maximum self-government’) is not applied to Gibraltar’s access to international law instruments (treaties and conventions in the main) when the application is of domestic nature and consequence alone.
"It makes little sense, within the ambit of ‘maximum self-governance’, that Gibraltar should need to jump FCO and other hurdles in order to have international rights of this order extended to it. In this respect, we have cited the examples of both the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has not been extended to Gibraltar as yet despite the UK having adopted it 25 years ago, and the Council of Europe’s Convention On Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, known as the ‘Istanbul Convention’.
"In the case of the latter, the UK has not as yet ratified the Istanbul Convention, and this prevents Gibraltar from making its own decisions on the matter. More autonomy should be required by Gibraltar on these issues; especially since it is plainly inconsistent with the promise of ‘maximum self-government’ so often stated and re-stated. The matter must, therefore, be flagged up and studied in order to remove the impediments at a time when two major safeguards appear to be disappearing from citizens’ protections."
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