The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

I wish to support the Rev Simeon Hall in his quest to have the Senate of The Bahamas abolished.
I held this view when I sat as the leader of the Opposition in the Senate and I expressed the view when I vacated my seat in the Upper Chamber.

It is my position that an Upper Chamber should be a place where its members should be senior legislators who have sat in the Lower Chamber and who have no desire for a seat in the House of Assembly and respected members of the community who have been involved in public life. In this way, any legislation which would be brought to the Chamber would be assessed and debated on its merits and not rubber stamped as is the usual practice today as persons who sit in the Chamber are persons who lost elections for seats in the Lower Chamber, persons who are desirous of sitting in the Lower House or political hangers on who are reluctant to step outside the party line.

If we continue to fill the Senate with persons who are political aspirants, then we will lose the purpose of the Chamber, which is to second guess the Lower Chamber and bring to the attention of legislators, the need for amendments to or the rejection of certain pieces of proposed legislation.

JEANNE THOMPSON

Legal Aid Clinic Eugene Dupuch Law School
Nassau,

January 18, 2013.