The UK Foreign Affairs Committee has finally published its 171-page report on Britain’s Oversea Territories. Among its recommendations for Bermuda are an end to conscription, a review of voting rights for long-term residents like Mr and Mrs Breezeblog and no discrimination based on sexual orientation. It also urges the Government to strengthen its transparency measures by establishing an independent Electoral Commission; allow committees of the House of Assembly to meet in public; and in its response to the report, set out the steps it has taken “to ensure that allegations of corruption at the Bermuda Housing Corporation, in the issuing of contracts, and of electoral fraud in Bermuda are properly investigated.
You can download the whole report from here.
Footnote: On the voting rights for permanent residents, a well-placed source tells me that Government will likely deal with that issue by granting status to all PRCs at the end of 2009 when all those eligible under the 20-year residency, “1989 rule” are accounted for.
Breezeblog 