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Dear Sir,

The office of Governor has been part of Bermuda's constitution throughout our almost 400 year history and the quality of the incumbents from time to time has varied greatly.

Some have made significant and enduring contributions to our culture and welfare and others have departed leaving little impression. The job always has been - and still is - an important and difficult one and until fairly recently the incumbent has always enjoyed the respect and cooperation of the local Government and people. The Governor and the representatives of the Bermuda Government had the same goal of working together for the betterment of Bermuda and each understood and respected the rights of the other.

The difficulty of the job is that the Governor wishes the Bermuda Government to be totally in charge of running Bermuda and yet he has a responsibility to ensure that Bermuda is properly governed. He is the exact opposite of a politician in that his job is to be as unobtrusive and inconspicuous as possible when it comes to influencing the performance of the local Government whereas our politicians are always fighting to make themselves the centre of attention in the media or everywhere else.

The change in attitude towards the Governor began in the early 1980s when Premier John Swan proclaimed that he was the head of Bermuda's Government and that he would like to take over the legal powers vested in the Governor. It caused a great deal of friction and then-Governor Sir Richard Posnett eventually resigned and left Bermuda.

The Governor has the last word in the appointment of the heads of six important Government Departments the most important being the Chief Justice and the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Commissioner of Police and the Auditor. The power to appoint these people is important but the relationship will not work unless he can count on the loyalty and competence and support both of the person appointed and of the Bermuda Government.

One of the few rare examples of the Governor having recourse to the exercise of his reserve powers against the wishes of the local Government happened in the early 1990s when Governor David Waddington recruited Colin Coxall to be Commissioner of Police.

Within a few years Colin Coxall brought about a remarkable improvement in the morale and efficiency of the police force - a department of which found that a Cabinet Minister was possibly involved in criminal activity. Premier Pamela Gordon and colleagues turned against Colin Coxall, which made it necessary for him to defend himself if he was to continue in his job. Unfortunately David Waddington's successor refused him permission to do this so Colin Coxall resigned and left the island.

Another such example happened in 2003 when our present Governor Sir John Vereker appointed Richard Ground as Chief Justice against the wishes of the then Premier Alex Scott. It will be a sad day for Bermuda if the ongoing tension between Ewart Brown's Government against the Chief Justice follows the same path as the Coxall affair.

The policy of the Ewart Brown Government is to grab any credit for the good achievements of the departments whose heads are appointed by the Governor and when they have shortcomings, they blame the Governor. As part of this policy all such departments are deprived of facilities and starved of cash to meet minimal required salaries.

Shameful

The police station and other accommodation is shameful, the DPP has not got the promised amendments to the Criminal Code for obvious reasons, nothing meaningful has been done to improve the court facilities for over one hundred years and the indignities inflicted on the auditor and his department are too well known to be mentioned.

The reason the Ewart Brown Government wishes to take over the police is that they will then be able to direct that no investigation shall be undertaken without their approval - and also to direct investigations against whomever they see fit. For similar reasons they wish to control the DPP and the judges and the auditor. The twenty five-year-old Bermuda Government policy of demonizing the Governor has had its effect on the community including the media. In The Royal Gazette coverage of the Bermuda Housing Corporation scandal it was alleged that the police investigation had not been completed because the Governor had ordered that it be discontinued to avoid embarrassing the Premier and other prominent persons involved in the investigation. The allegation that the Governor would interfere with any particular police file is preposterous and to attribute such base motives to him in doing so is mischievous.

Hopefully the behaviour of Ewart Brown and his colleagues will cause thinking Bermudians to realize how fragile our economy is and how important our link with the U. K. is as a bulwark for the protection of the democratic rights enshrined in our

constitution.

William M. Cox

City of Hamilton[[In-content Ad]]

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