While Mr. Christie has been ordered by his doctors to have complete rest, there are certain Constitutional requirements of the Prime Minister that must be carried out by the holder of the office.
Constitutional experts say that only the Prime Minister has the Constitutional authority to call a Cabinet meeting. If a meeting of Ministers is held without it being summoned by the Prime Minister, it is simply a meeting of Ministers and not a Cabinet meeting and the conclusions of the Cabinet on any issue or project would not be valid.
This system was reportedly designed by the British to discourage coups from taking place.
Under the Constitution, Mr. Christie must specifically be involved in the summoning of the Cabinet and the appointment of the Deputy Prime Minister to chair the meeting on his behalf.
The Constitution does not recognize the position of Deputy Prime Minister. However, under the country’s system, if the Prime Minister is out of the country the Prime Minister’s nominee, who is usually the Deputy Prime Minister, is appointed by the Governor General to act on his behalf until his return.
The experts say that Mr. Christie will not be able to divorce himself of the day-to-day operations of the government which is against doctors’ orders.
Mr. Christie’s illness comes at a crucial time as his government’s annual budget is being prepared. As Minister of Finance, this is his busiest and most involved period of the year as budget allocations have to be agreed as Ministers jockey for budget allocations.
While Mr. Christie is expected to get considerable support from his Minister of State for Finance James Smith, the overall responsibility and the political policy judgments to carry out the government’s agenda should be marshaled by the prime minister.
But Minister Smith insisted on Thursday that the government will face no serious challenges in preparing a budget due to the prime minister’s illness.
“We’ve got a pretty strong technical team in the Ministry of Finance, Treasury, Customs and other places,” he said in an interview with The Bahama Journal.
“And most of the work would have been pretty much done. We are fine-tuning and at the time I think as the budget [communication] comes around it wouldn’t take [the prime minister] very long to come up to speed because he knows the numbers already.
“He knows where we want to go. He knows the policy issues. It’s really a question of letting the technicians now go to work in fine-tuning the budget process and then preparing the presentation.
When Mr. Christie took ill, Deputy Prime Minister Cynthia Pratt made what Constitutional experts called a dubious statement, saying that there was no need for the appointment of an Acting Prime Minister.
“He’s still with us,” Minister Pratt said on Tuesday, referring to the PM. “He’s just at Princess Margaret Hospital resting.”
She added, “He will be abreast of what is going on as it relates to the government and of course the country. But at the same time we want to give him that period of time that he needs to rest and recuperate-I keep saying to him, ‘You’re not made of iron. You’re not made of steel. You’re not invincible. Everybody must take a break.’ And I believe he realizes now that he needs to take a break.”
But on Thursday, Minister of Health Dr. Marcus Bethel announced at a press conference at the hospital that Minister Pratt is now the Acting Prime Minister.
Already a number of decisions and events have been postponed due to the Prime Minister’s illness.
However, due to the penchant of the Prime Minister to get involved in all decisions of the Cabinet, the system has evolved to the point where the Prime Minister, while he is in the country, must be an integral part of every major decision of his government.
From The Bahama Journal
