Africa-Press – Mauritius. It seems that the idea advocating a new Constitution for the Republic of Mauritius is beginning to take shape with the launch this week of a publication aimed at opening a debate on the issue. Why do we need a new Constitution? Jack Bizlall: This is a question that has been around for a very long time.
Some believe that a new constitution can only come from above, that is to say from our political leaders, as was the case in 1968 after the London negotiations in agreement with England or, in 1992, with a project of political sharing between the MMM and the MSM.
Fortunately, we escaped the 2014 agreement for the establishment of a quasi-presidential republic. It was a victory for democracy and not a victory for the Jugnauth family.
This time, the initiative comes from six people, three former parliamentarians and three academics and the project aims to reach a consensus for a New Constitution and thus move to the Second Republic.
There will certainly be a question of opposing parliamentary supremacy to constitutional supremacy. For me, this is crucial. This will be the very essence of the debate.
The next Constitution will have to be approved by the people. Politically speaking, we left a Parliamentary Monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as Head of State to enter a Republican Monarchy under the reign of the Jugnauth family.
Our constitution has never been approved directly by the people. The time has come to change the situation as was the case in India between 1947 and 1950.
* It is argued that the 1968 Constitution was designed to entrench the authority of the then Prime Minister, but successive governments – some with absolute majorities – have made no fundamental changes in the system in place to, among other things, stop abuse.
It is difficult to see these same leaders supporting any approach aimed at weakening their control over the country’s state apparatus, right? Our Constitution imposes on us a Prime Minister who can do anything as long as he has a majority in the National Assembly.
He can even sell the country! Nobody realizes that the political party, which is supposed to apply a policy respecting democracy, acts through an undisputed leader.
This is the case in almost all our political parties and, moreover, this fact installs dynasties in our country. It is a shame that has affected us for years.
The only prime minister who did not want his son to enter politics was Seewoosagur Ramgoolam. Let us see how political parties work and ask ourselves if the country is not suffering from it.
Nothing is provided for in our constitution for political parties. It is more an aberration than democratic irrationality. I agree that these people cannot and will not change things.
This is the first obstacle we have to face. Another obstacle will come from those who want to establish a New Republic as was the case in more than 40 countries after 1924.
Stalinism and single parties must therefore be opposed. I got my hands on a post-republican constitution for a classless society when the notion of majority will have no meaning or use.
For the need of a Second Republic, I have already written the first chapter of a New Constitution with no less than 50 constitutional proposals already in practice in several countries.
This essay will be for sale and it is taken from another publication made in 2012. I have no intention of leaving this project. Let those who want to help us make themselves known.
* It is possible that a paradigmatic transformation has taken place in our society in relation to the motivations and priorities of our citizens, and it is therefore not easy to involve them in the debates on the major issues that should interest our country.
A new constitution might be the least of their concerns. What do you think? If I had this apprehension, I would have taken refuge in my union activities.
On the contrary, for five years and more, I have moved away from the event journalism that is practiced to devote myself largely to writing for a new constitution.
It is obvious that it will be necessary to organize conferences in the universities and also in the regions most interested in politics. It will especially be necessary to speak about it in the medium of the workers.
Nothing should be left to chance. There will therefore be around the core of the initiators, circles of contributors to the drafting and the search for the approval of the masses.
Why couldn’t we hold a vote in these regions and places on the final shape of this constitution? Who prevents us from doing so? My opinion about what Mauritians, Rodriguans, Agaleans and Chagossians want: it is a change in their constitutional interests.
For the Rodriguans, it is independence. For the Chagossians, it is the return to the Chagos. It is up to us to transform these interests into constitutional wills. We are all concerned.
* But, is it mainly the prevailing political culture and current practices in the country during the last decade that have motivated and accelerated this process in favor of a new Constitution? There are several factors. Nothing in politics remains static or reductive in nature. Nothing should be simplified in an abusive or irrational way.
Indeed, there are several existential, historical and philosophical motivations that drive social classes, social categories, but above all individuals who want things to change according to their interests, their ideology and their quest for the happiness of living in complete freedom.
The greatest of these quests is certainly the freedom of the human person who is precisely in the supra-constitutional Republic. I therefore ask your readers to answer the following two questions:
When did the leaders of our country appeal to this freedom to have a true Republican Constitution approved? If we never answer, it’s because we’re not in a Republic.
Who symbolizes the Republic in our institutions, including the judiciary? Chapter 1 describes Mauritius as “a sovereign democratic state”. Read the Indian constitution and you will see the big difference.
* What has come under criticism in recent years has been the malfunctioning or blocking of key public institutions in the country – the ICAC, the police, the Electoral Commission, the Electoral Supervisory Commission.
. There has also been a lot of talk about ‘state capture’ lately. It is not certain that a strengthening of laws or a new Constitution will change the situation; what the country needs are men of integrity. . . Who is a person of integrity? She is supposed to be “of great probity”, a person who cannot be corrupted.
Name me a person at the head of the country and our institutions who did not use insertion education, his social position, his political ties, his ethnicity, his money, his family relations, his belonging to occult organizations, his individualism, his submission, or his socio-economic alienations to occupy these state functions.
What is needed are republican institutions which by their functions (not their roles) and their attributions (not their power) set limits to their interventions (very important) in our society.
There is a semantic battle to be fought. There is a very big difference between governing and administering. What I personally seek from this new Constitution is an elaborate and fundamental chapter.
The essence of the new constitution must be found in its first chapter. I therefore ask your readers to focus on the first chapter which currently consists of two incomplete phases. It is necessary to go through the complete elaboration of this first chapter.
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