Following growing backlash over legislative secrecy, the coming constitutional reforms could end the House of Assembly’s colonial-era practice of holding its most important deliberations behind closed doors.
Premier Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley said last week that he favours a “healthy debate” on ending the HOA’s private committee sessions, where members routinely discuss budget decisions, laws and other major matters outside of public view.
“Many persons have spoken about making the committee stage public,” Mr. Wheatley said last week during the government’s Virgin Islands Voice broadcast. “There’s a process if we want to put forward an amendment to the [HOA] Standing Orders.”
Constitutional talks
HOA secrecy was highlighted last month when legislators entered a closed-door committee of the whole House to debate the report of the Constitutional Review Commission.
The move came despite Opposition Leader Myron Walwyn calling for the talks — which continued in private this week ahead of coming negotiations with the United Kingdom — to be open to the public.
“This is a document that belongs to everybody,” Mr. Walwyn said on Sept. 22 while backing a CRC recommendation to make all HOA committee sessions public whenever possible. “Let us defy the odds: Make this committee public for the people, because it’s the people’s Constitution, and 13 people going to be in here in secret … saying what they want for themselves personally, what suits their agenda — and the people are excluded.”
But four days later, the HOA entered the closed-door session, which the premier described as a procedural step required by the Standing Orders when debating reports tabled in the House. The HOA recessed the same day, but it returned on Monday and Tuesday of this week to continue the private talks before recessing until tomorrow.
The committee stage
In the United Kingdom Parliament, committee sessions are nearly always held in public — except in rare instances of discussions involving sensitive national security matters.
But in the VI and some other UK overseas territories, the closed-door committee stage is a routine feature of lawmaking.
Here, the private stage typically comes after a bill is proposed and debated publicly on the House floor.
During the ensuing closed-door session, all 13 members review the proposed legislation clause by clause and amend it as they see fit.
Then the bill — with or without amendments — goes to the governor, but the final version is not made public until after it receives his assent and is published in the government’s Gazette weeks, months or even years later.
If the governor withholds his assent, the public may never see the amended bill at all — and thus may never know what the HOA passed in the first place.
Budget deliberations
Besides routine lawmaking, major budget decisions are also made behind closed doors each year when the Standing Finance Committee meets.
During the SFC deliberations, all of which are private, senior public officers appear before the 13 elected HOA members and explain their spending requests.
Weeks or months later, the HOA publishes a report summarising the SFC deliberations — but it is frequently redacted and often includes sections that are vague or even unintelligible.
New way forward?
Last week, Mr. Wheatley signalled that he is open to debating a revamp of the closed-door committee system.
“In the future, if we want the committee sessions to be public, we would have to amend the Standing Orders, and that’s something that we can discuss,” he said.
The premier added that he sees advantages and disadvantages to going public.
“We have certain discussions in committee which are privileged and confidential, and you also have witnesses who may not be as forthright and honest if they know that their statements will be made public,” he said.
The premier also floated a compromise where committee decisions could be publicised more quickly after the fact.
“There is also, of course, the changes that you make to legislation, and I think there’s a case for making [the amendments] public but not the deliberations of the committee,” Mr. Wheatley said.
He added that it is up to HOA members to bring about a change.
“If persons want to put forward proposals and suggestions to amend the Standing Orders, there’s a process for that,” he said, adding, “It’s a healthy debate that we should have.”
Pay raises
Legislative secrecy was also highlighted last month when it was revealed that HOA members had decided in a closed-door meeting in December 2023 to double their own salaries.
The massive wage hike didn’t come to light until last month, when Auditor General Sonia Webster released the findings of her probe into a $20 million overspend on public officers’ and HOA members’ pay. Ms. Webster described the December 2023 meeting as “informal” — suggesting that it wasn’t a committee session — but HOA members insisted without proof that they had followed proper budgeting procedures.
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