76.7 F
Charlotte Amalie
Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesSeparation of Powers

Separation of Powers

Dear Source:
The Constitutional delegates will be discussing government reforms. Among those are the basis of our laws and how we pay for our programs. The following area should be addressed by the delegates: How Our Laws are Made.
We now have Legislative and Executive branches of government that are not truly separated. Many laws in the Virgin Islands Code give the Senate power that the Executive branch should rightfully possess. This existing statutory legislative power makes it difficult for the Executive branch to control the programs and revenue (funding) mandated by law and administer funding necessary to carry them out. Many statutes that diminish the Executive branch's power need to be revamped or discarded completely. The new Constitution can make it clear just what the duties of the three branches are. In doing so, our existing laws and all created in the future would have to follow Constitutional guidelines. The role of the Legislative branch is to make laws and approve the budget-nothing more. The Judicial branch would have to be revamped and given Constitutional powers to more clearly understand what the Constitution meant and if existing laws truly meet Constitutional muster. Laws made in the future would have to be in line with the new Constitution so it is important to write the Constitution carefully.
Citizens should have the right to either repeal or modify laws or to submit proposals (bills) to create new ones. At no time should the Legislature ever have the ability to meet in secret or emergency sessions to make laws. The senate budget (and it's length of session) should be limited to a fraction of what it is now and not allow for any perks. Senators should only receive a stipend for the actual time they show up and a very limited budget for staff. We could easily save millions of dollars if we reduce the legislature to a part-time body.
If municipalities were a reality, they would create their own laws (by-laws) under which they run local governments thus reducing the number of laws created by the legislature and the primary reason why we only will need a part-time Senate. The Senate's role will be to approve the budget requests from the Executive branch in concert with the requests from municipalities (over and above local property taxes) and to approve funding for those central government programs which are under the Executive and Judicial branches. The Executive branch would still have to collect income taxes, excise taxes, import duties, etc and be the agent who distributes those taxes to the municipalities, while only keeping what is needed to run other central government programs such as National Guard, Port Authorities, environmental and ecological oversight, oversight of: spending (including municipal), educational initiatives (NOT the running of) for schools, territorial human service programs, public housing initiatives and a few other services. As it should be, the central government should only have oversight and fiscal control of tax collections and make laws relevant to how municipalities should perform. Municipalities would take care of everything else. Tax and other revenues collected by the central government (excluding property taxes) would be shared equally with municipalities based on population.
Constitutional language can make that all happen. No longer would we have to depend on a far-away agency to take care of our needs. We could and should make those decisions ourselves.

Paul Devine
St. John

Editor's note: We welcome and encourage readers to keep the dialogue going by responding to Source commentary. Letters should be e-mailed with name and place of residence to source@viaccess.net.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Keeping our community informed is our top priority.
If you have a news tip to share, please call or text us at 340-228-8784.

Support local + independent journalism in the U.S. Virgin Islands

Unlike many news organizations, we haven't put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as accessible as we can. Our independent journalism costs time, money and hard work to keep you informed, but we do it because we believe that it matters. We know that informed communities are empowered ones. If you appreciate our reporting and want to help make our future more secure, please consider donating.