Flanked by other high ranking officers on the steps of the House of Assembly, Commissioner of Police Clayton Fernander in his role as Provost Marshall read a proclamation on Saturday from the Governor General proroguing Parliament until October 2023.
The proclamation read in part, “whereas the Parliament of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas has prorogued from Saturday the twelfth day of August, 2023. And whereas article 65 (1) of the constitution provides that each session of Parliament shall be held at such place and commence at such time as the Governor General may by proclamation appoint.”
On hand at Parliament was Attorney General, Sen. Hon. Ryan Pinder who spoke to reporters about the government’s legislative agenda when the new session of Parliament begins October 4th. “Given that that’s a new session of Parliament we’ll have a speech from the throne. And that speech from the throne would then lay out what we see as our legislative priorities and our legislative agenda for the next sitting of Parliament.”
Pinder went further saying, “we have passed, certainly significant health care legislation coming out of the crisis and COVID. We identified health care as an area that needed to be advanced and brought up to best practices. We had a series of legislative amendments and new bills that would address health care in the country and that certainly is going to be a continued theme in the new legislative agenda that we will adopt from the speech from the throne in October.”
On whether the prorogation of Parliament was carried out to pave the way for a Cabinet shuffle or new Governor General Pinder said, “I don’t foresee a bye-election. I don’t foresee a general election. I don’t foresee any of those items. Certainly we think that it is a good time having almost half way through our administration, two years of the five years through our administration, to be able to initiated a new legislative agenda. As you would know this is not something that is particular to the country. The have been many instance in which the House of Assembly has been prorogued for just this purpose notwithstanding that it was prorogued last time to go to a general election.”
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