Caswell Franklyn’s submission that the Senate was not authorized to send the Cybercrime Bill 2024 to a committee was rejected. This was one of the revelations of the brief prepared for the chairman of the Joint Select Committee on Governance and Policy Matters, Mr. Edmund Hinkson.
The brief was prepared by the Clerk of Parliament and was one of two major reports considered by the Senate in its weekly meeting on Wednesday 05 February 2025.
A Joint Committee is a one made up of members of both houses of Parliament. The Joint Select Committee on Governance and Policy Matters is one of three Joint Committees set up under the new republic of Barbados. The other two are Joint Committee on Economic Matters and the Joint Committee on Environmental Matters.
The Joint Select Committee on Governance and Policy Matters is made up of four members from the Lower House and three from the Senate or Upper House
The brief referred to media statements made by Mr. Caswell Franklyn, a former opposition Senator, in the Daily Nation in April 2024. In those reports Mr. Franklyn is alleged to have suggested that Parliament, having passed a law – in this case Cybercrime Bill 2024 – could not revisit the law through a committee.
However, the document argued that parliament had the right of “Exclusive Cognizance”, that is, “the right of each House to judge the lawfulness of its own proceedings”. By way of elaboration, the brief also noted, on page 8, that it was:
The exclusive right of the two Houses to make and to vary their own rules of Procedure protects the legislative supremacy of Parliament and the exclusive right of the Commons to grant aids and supplies.
You can download the full report of the Joint Select Committee (Standing) on Governance and Policy Matters on the Cybercrime Bill, 2024 here.
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