The former commissioner of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) Justice Francis Emile Short says the Constitution Review Commission should have recommended an outright barring of the President from choosing any of his Ministers from Parliament.
Currently the Constitution requires the President to choose majority of his ministers from the legislature. The Constitution Review Commission suggested in its report that the provision which makes that mandatory should be scrapped.
It however fell short of proposing an outright halt to the practice.
But Justice Emile Short in an interview with XYZ News said the Constitution Review Commission should have gone a step further to recommend a proscription of the practice.
�A Member of Parliament who is given a Ministerial appointment should either relinquish his position as an MP or vice versa. So if the recommendation is that the President can appoint Ministers from within or without parliament it means that theoretically he can still appoint majority of his MPs from within Parliament� Mr. Short said.
�He added that �I thought that there should have been a recommendation which would have made it impermissible for an MP to become a minister and vice versa�.
Justice Emile Short however welcomed a suggestion by the Review Commission that the death penalty be abolished.
�It is in the right direction that death penalty should be abolished and people sentenced to death should be committed to life imprisonment sentences. �I think that is a welcome recommendation that the government has accepted�.
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