John Culatto
GIBRALTAR could get more powers to control its own affairs and international status under plans presented by the GSLP/Liberal coalition ahead of the October 12 election.
Deputy Chief Minister Joseph Garcia said he had been working both with the UK and other British overseas territories to try to come up with a new constitution for the Rock.
He said that such a constitution document would be presented to the people who would vote for it in a referendum, and if passed, could help decolonise Gibraltar under UN rules.
Garcia said Gibraltar would like to take the fourth option of a ‘tailor-made solution’ towards UN decolonisation.
The historian said he would want to look at ‘the internal structures of Gibraltar but also external relating to international legal status, which are which at the moment is as a non self-governing territory’.
He promised to work with the other parties in parliament as well as the general public who could make submissions toward the final constitution document.
“The work that we envisage doing would require that people from the community come and give evidence to the select committee of what they believe are the ways that the Constitution should be amended,” added caretaker Chief Minister Fabian Picardo.
Picardo said he would also be looking at very closely whether Gibraltar could be represented in the UK Parliament.
After Brexit denied the Rock its representative in the European Parliament as part of the southwest England constituency, voices in the UK have been keen to hear Gibraltar’s views directly through its own MP.
“We believe that it’s important that we do not shut the door on the possibility of representation in the Westminster parliament for the people at Gibraltar,” Picardo said.
He said this could operate either by ‘direct election of a Member of Parliament for Gibraltar or direct election from Gibraltar of a Member of Parliament even in not only for Gibraltar, or indeed representation in the upper chamber of the UK’.
Again, he said he wanted to hear from the community about ‘what is possible in the political relationship with the UK’.
Picardo described the ‘chaos’ of Brexit and the pandemic as one of the reasons the government had not decided on ‘sensible reform’ of the current 2006 constitution.
But he said Gibraltar would want to keep all the powers of that document and add others on top of it.
He added he hoped it would be the GSLP/Liberals who would end up in the driving seat to address the Select Committee on Constitutional Reform in the future.
GSLP/Liberal party members are already in full campaign mode, taking new candidates to hustings at the various housing estates just days after they were announced.
READ MORE:
- UK officials meet with Gibraltar’s top ministers to discuss updating the constitution
- Chief Minister gives ‘a big yes’ for Gibraltar to get British MP as long as UK respects its full…
- Gibraltar pushes for negotiation over conflict at UN decolonisation committee in New York
