Redistricting Exercise Underway; Will Constituency Numbers Change?

The redistricting exercise is already underway and within a year’s time, the committee which has been set up to carry out the daunting task, will be presenting its recommendations to the Elections and Boundaries Commission. The exercise was requested due to disparity in the number of constituents across divisions. The challenge was that there was not true representation in the House. Today, Minister of Public Service, Constitutional and Political Reform, Henry Charles Usher said that with the process there may be a change in the number of seats in the House. 

Henry Charles Usher, Minister of Public Service, Constitutional and Political Reform

“The Election and Boundaries Commission has appointed a task force of technical persons to look at the redistricting exercise. So that task force has already started carrying out its task and we should receive a report from then in about a year’s time. From there, the recommendation will go to the Election and Boundaries Commission. They will then make a recommendation to the national assembly and of course the redistricting when it is done, of course, it has to be approved in the House.”

Henry Charles Usher

Duane Moody

“Could we see the number of seats change?”

Henry Charles Usher

“Certainly that’s an option that the number of seats might change. For the seats to go up, then you would need to have the approval in the National Assembly. If it remains the same, I believe that it can be done differently. But the exercise has to go through and we have to make sure that the technical team does its work.

The constitution says that there must be effective representation; it does not say equal representation. Now effective representation has been defined throughout other jurisdictions. They have had redistricting exercises and court cases in other countries and judges have pronounced on what it means by effective representation. And certainly you have to look at different factors when it comes to the meaning of the word effective, including population, including transportation, including geography. So there are different factors that are put into place, but what is important that the constituencies are so made up that each constituency, the persons in those constituencies receive effective representation.”