No ban on lawmakers with pending court cases, CRC recommends

A Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) report has recommended that lawmakers should not be disqualified from elected office if they have pending court matters and suggested some convicts could be elected to office once their criminal past is disclosed.

That recommendation comes in the wake of one current lawmaker being elected despite facing charges of Breach of Trust before the local courts and candidates with previous convictions who ran for office at the last election.

According to the report, there were submissions from the public to the Commission for the expansion of the grounds for disqualification from election to public office, including on the grounds of conviction and the grounds of pending criminal matters.

Before coming to a decision, the Commission said it considered prevailing international standards relating to the exclusion of persons with convictions and pending criminal matters from holding elected office. The CRC said it found little consistency concerning what prevails throughout the world relating to persons with convictions.

“For example, in the US and Finland, there are no or little restrictions on persons being eligible based on convictions alone. In some countries, offences in general preclude running for elected office,” the report stated.

Meanwhile, the CRC recommended that there should also be a comprehensive review of the offences which could, upon conviction, operate to disqualify persons from holding public office. It added that this should be done to ascertain whether the categories of offences are sufficiently wide to protect the interests of the BVI.

The report also recommended that there should be mandatory disclosure of any spent convictions by persons seeking to be elected to the House of Assembly.

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