Major changes to the 9th Amendment

Going back to Friday’s House meeting, the report from the Constitution and Foreign Affairs Committee on the Ninth Amendment bill has been cleaned up. News Five has seen a copy of the recommendations submitted after the ninth amendment was taken on a countrywide road show. A quick read of what you will see on Friday shows a significant change to the bill. There are two major concessions. Government is removing the offending language as follows: in the new subsection nine of section sixty-nine, the words “and a law passed by the National Assembly to alter any of the provisions of this Constitution which is passed in conformity with this section shall not be open to challenge in any court of law on any ground whatsoever.” will be deleted. Government is also removing the words “and no court shall enquire into the constitutionality, legality or validity of the said acquisitions notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in section seventeen, section twenty or any other provision of this Constitution or any other law or rule of practice from subsection one. Subsection two will be deleted in its entirety. So there you have it; the bill will go back to the house on Friday with two major concessions by government. We’ll have reaction on Friday’s newscast.