The Privy Council upheld Unc’s local Government challenge against the Government’s extension of the term of incumbent local government representatives by a year on Thursday 18th May, 2023.
Remember when I spoke about the Local Government Story on Tuesday?
• This morning the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council delivered a landmark ruling whereby it reaffirmed the foundational principles of our democracy and the rule of law while at the same time striking down the actions of this government to postpone the holding of local government elections.
The Privy Council stated:
1. The rights conferred by a democratic system of government are not only individual rights enjoyed by each person entitled to vote. It is also the right of all members of the relevant community to be governed by representatives chosen democratically, whether or not individually they are entitled to vote or have exercised that right.
2. A democratic society will necessarily engage other rights, freedom of expression and association, for example – but the election of representatives for a fixed or maximum period is the foundation on which it is built.
3. It is inimical to a representative democracy that the representatives are chosen by anyone other than the electorate. It is not for Parliament, still, less the Government, to choose the representatives. But, if the amendments to sections 11 and 12 are construed to apply to the incumbent Councillors and Aldermen, the effect will be that they have been chosen as representatives for an additional year, not by the electorate but by the Government, which brought the amendments into force while those Councillors and Aldermen were still in office.
The ruling of the Privy Council means that the decision of the government to extend the term of councillors and aldermen and to postpone the holding of local government elections was unlawful.
• This is a decision that affects every citizen of this country as it highlights the actions of an administration that was prepared to sacrifice the will of the people and the democracy of our country for the selfish aims of a government.
• Such actions have always characterized this administration and today the people of this country have been victorious against the autocratic, undemocratic and unlawful actions of this government.
