PPP/Civic, PNC agree on ethnic relations proposals
The PPP/Civic and the PNC dialogue teams have come to agreement on proposals for the establishment of an Ethnic Relations Commission. Stabroek News has learnt that the two sides have decided that the proposals would not be made public by them but they would leave it up to the Oversight Committee to determine whether or not to make them public. However, this newspaper understands that the proposals call for a commission with a membership of about five to ten appointed from an agreed group of civic organisations as recommended by the Constitution Reform Commission (CRC). The proposals provide for the chairman of the commission to be elected by a consensual mechanism and for the members to be appointed by the mechanism used to appoint some of the members of the CRC. The mechanism calls for organisations, eg religious organisations, to select representatives who would meet and elect a delegate to sit on the commission. It also calls for the establishment of a secretariat which would be capable of mounting an investigation into complaints of discrimination. The staff of the secretariat are to be appointed in a transparent manner but it is one of the areas which needs further refining. The proposals emphasize the necessity for the commission to enjoy the confidence of the public and the political parties and state that one way of doing so would be to ensure that the appointment process is fair and transparent. Tuesday's meeting was the last for the year as the remit of the CARICOM Facilitator Maurice King runs out on December 31. A review of the process to determine whether additional funding would be made available beyond December 31, should have been made this weekend at CARICOM Bureau meeting that was scheduled for Trinidad and Tobago. That meeting has now been cancelled. Another factor would be the continued availability of King. Stabroek News understands that this would now depend on his other commitments and the demands of his legal practice and how these could be accommodated with his continued participation in the dialogue process. Meanwhile, King has expressed satisfaction with the work done by the parties to the Herdmanston Accord dialogue process on the proposals for the Ethnic Relations Commission. In a telephone interview with Stabroek News, King said that if the parties took the same approach to the other issues to be discussed as they did with regard to the Ethnic Relations Commission then much would be accomplished. King explained that the PPP/Civic and the PNC demonstrated a willingness to get things done during the discussions of the proposals for the Ethnic Relations Commission.
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