Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Cit­i­zens at­tend­ing Sat­ur­day's pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form raised a wide range of con­cerns and is­sues to the six com­mis­sion­ers. Some al­so made pro­pos­als which they hoped would be in­clud­ed in the Con­sti­tu­tion.

The right to elect the House Speak­er and pres­i­dent, gay rights, gen­der mat­ters, the sep­a­ra­tion of Church and State, pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion, labour and the right of re­call of elect­ed of­fi­cials were some of the top­ics which scores of cit­i­zens sought to dis­cuss at the 13th con­sul­ta­tion at the Diego Mar­tin North Sec­ondary School, St Lu­cien Road.Kick­ing off the ses­sion around 5.50 pm was for­mer pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers Trade Union Robert Giusep­pi.

He pro­posed that a work­er's job should be made his prop­er­ty and should be pro­tect­ed."I am mak­ing a pro­pos­al to the min­is­ter and his pan­el that in the new Con­sti­tu­tion, it must be framed to en­sure that work­ers ... their jobs should be pro­tect­ed like any oth­er per­son who owns prop­er­ty," he said.Don­ald Bermont, who rep­re­sent­ed the or­gan­i­sa­tion Men Against Vi­o­lence Against Women, said he was un­hap­py he could not vote for whom he want­ed to be pres­i­dent.

Pow­der Mag­a­zine res­i­dent David Berkley mean­while said he had "a se­ri­ous prob­lem" with the man­ner in which the House Speak­er was elect­ed. He said he felt cur­rent House Speak­er Wade Mark was dis­re­spect­ing the con­stituents of Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral when­ev­er he chas­tised the MP, Dr Amery Browne, in Par­lia­ment.Berkley said, "When the Speak­er comes in such a vi­cious man­ner at the MP for Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral he is al­so dis­re­spect­ing the con­stituents of the area."

Browne sat in the front row with Ari­ma may­or Ghas­san Youseph and chair­man of the Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion An­tho­ny Sam­my.Browne did not speak.Al­so in at­ten­dance was for­mer sen­a­tor Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith. Her con­tri­bu­tion last­ed about six min­utes and in­clud­ed one ad­just­ment and three in­clu­sions to the Con­sti­tu­tion.

Al­so speak­ing at length were for­mer Con­gress of the Peo­ple mem­ber Nali­ni Di­al and Youseph.Di­al said she hoped the con­sul­ta­tions weren't a sham and that all sub­mis­sions would bear fruit.She said there should be a fixed date for a gen­er­al elec­tion and there should be a right of re­call for non-per­form­ing of­fi­cials.MPs, she said, should be held ac­count­able for lack of prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion of their elec­torate, im­pro­pri­ety, cor­rup­tion and wrong­do­ing.