This amendment has set a bad precedence

Editor: I cannot say how utterly aghast I am that this Government, in its attempts to get people to take the vaccine, would go to such a questionable length as to change a sacred tenet of the Constitution to remove “voluntary”. We must stop to question ourselves about the meaning and implications of such an amendment.

In its quest to sway Vincentians to take the vaccine, the government has moved in stages from perpetuating ‘grandiose’ claims of being vaccinated, to providing gifts and lotteries to incite others to take it, to issuing subtle and open threats of losing jobs to those who don’t, to now infringing on the rights of Vincentians by ‘amending’ the constitution.

Editor, the rights of all Vincentians are enshrined rights by the constitution and protected and respected under the constitution, the sacred law of the land.

The constitution is not someone’s personal novel which they can edit as they please, and as easily as they please, or whenever it pleases them. Furthermore, if the opposition does not agree with the enacting of the amendment, there is no way the House of Parliament should pass it. Both the government and the opposition represent the collective body of Vincentians, not just the government.

This is why I strongly believe that this ‘amendment’ is a case of bad precedence. It not only takes away the rights of Vincentians under a now or future government, it also sets up and secures any future arbitrary attempts to ‘amend’ the constitution for any self-serving interests of this or any future government. Moreover, we could no longer claim we have a constitution, but rather a document subjected to the dictates of someone or some government. 

Editor, the integrity and high esteem of the constitution must be preserved and respected, or we have nothing.

Citizen of SVG