SUBMISSION OF THE JCEMW TO THE RICHARD COMMISSION ON THE POWERS AND ELECTORAL ARRANGEMENTS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY FOR WALES
1. The Joint Committee for the Ethnic Minorities in Wales exists to assert, protect and defend the interests of the minority community in Wales and to make representations on their behalf on matters of concern to them and their future in the geo-political affairs of Wales.
2. By way of background, it must be stated that the Richard Commission would not represent the last occasion when the Governance of Wales in the context of devolution would be re-examined, analysed and repositioned. In 1904 Sidney Low in the opening chapter of his Governance of England wrote:
"It is not so much that our constitution is unwritten, for of course much the largest part of it is written and printed, but that it is unfixed and flexible where others are rigid. We are not concerned with a solid building to which a room may be added here, or a wing there, but with a living organism in a condition of perpetual growth and change."
Four years later A Lawrence Lowell. remarked in similar vein:
"The system was not excogitated by an a priori method It has grown up by a continual series of adaptations In this it is like a living organism. There are no doubt many small anomalies and survivals that mar the unity for the purpose of description, but these like survivals of-structure in animals, like the splint bones in the-leg of a horse, for example, do not interfere seriously with the action of the whole." See Marshall G and Moodie G..C: Some Problems of the Constitution 5th Edition Hutchinson London (1971) pp17-18.
Sir Ivor Jennings the Constitutional theorist, stated "The British Constitution has not been made but has grown and mixing his metaphors The building has been constantly added to, patched and partially reconstructed, so that it has been renewed from century to century; but it has never been razed to the ground and rebuilt on new foundations." See Munro C. Studies in Constitutional Law, London Butterworths (1979) Page 1.
Writing in 1990, the late Lord Hailsham considered devolution in the context in which it was eventually delivered by the Government. This is what he wrote "To some extent it -devolved assemblies - would placate nationalist feeling in Scotland and Wales and provide a degree of devolution for Northern Ireland. It would put the various regional quangos which now exist under the control of the regional assemblies in place of Whitehall, together with control of the health boards, water, electricity generation and distribution, higher education, airports, port authorities and most roads. It would render possible a system of regional taxation less unfair and less irrational than local rates (the Community Charge was not then under discussion) and it would greatly reduce the pressure on central administration while not undermining the monarchy, the cabinet system or the sovereignty of Parliament. Although it was written under a Labour administration with strong centralising authoritarian and regulatory tendencies, The Dilemma of Democracy was not an essay on policy or on party politics. It was an attempt to cope with the problem of over-centralisation which had been growing on us since the end of the first World War." Lord Hailsham - The Dilemma of Democracy London - Collies (1978) Lord Hailsham, A Sparrow's Flight: Fontana (1990) pp 391-394.
The Human Rights Act 1998 which gives effect to the rights and freedoms guaranteed under the European Convention on Human Rights has incorporated `Convention Rights' into English Law. So by virtue of Article 14, "the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in the Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status."
In addition two EC directives published in 2000 deal directly with race relations. They are Council Directive 2000/43/EC implementing the principle of equal treatment between people irrespective of racial or ethnic origin, and Council Directive 2000/78/EC establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation.
Although there is an office of the CRE in Wales, there is no reason why functions relating to Race Relations should not be transferred to the Assembly in the light of the material assembled in this submission, devolution would have little or no relevance to the black and minority ethnic community if a function which central to their well being is not within the competence of a devolved administration. We must point out that we are aware that the Government has published its consultation paper containing proposals for future organisation structures, one which is to create a single equality body comprising the CRE, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Disability Rights Commission.
The first part of our submission deals with the questions raised in your Consultation Paper dated November 2002. The only comment we would offer is that the Assembly should at least be given law making powers to the limited extent available to Scotland together with the tax raising powers limited in similar fashion. In view of the possibility that any final decision on the recommendations of the Commission may be put to a referendum of the people, it would appear that only changes that attract support from all the political parties represented in the Assembly are ever likely to be introduced.
With reference to your Consultation Document of March 2003, our fundamental position is that this part of your remit is irrelevant as far as Black and Minority Ethnic people are concerned. Whilst we await the outcome of the Assembly Elections of 1 st May 2003 with equanimity, if the results show once again that no Black or Asian candidate is elected on the Party Lists, then the whole world would want to know what is going on in Wales.
The proposals set out in paragraphs 19-25 of the Document deserve consideration but in the language of Lord Scarman, your Commission may have to take bold steps to tackle racial disadvantage by proposing amendments to the Government of Wales Act which would ensure fair representation for Black and Minority Ethnic people of Wales at least in line with their number in the overall population of Wales.
We would conclude our submission by inviting the attention of members of your Commission to a speech delivered in Hope Street Baptist Church, Montgomery Alabama by the late Dr Martin Luther King in a situation not too far removed from the present experience of Black and Asian people in Wales. He said, inter alia "We are here this evening for serious business. We're here in a general sense because first and foremost, we are American citizens, and we are determined to acquire our citizenship to the fullness of its meaning. We are here also because of our deep-seated belief that democracy transformed from thin paper to thick action is the greatest form of government on earth.
There comes a time that people get tired. We are here this evening to say to those who have mistreated us so long that we are tired - tired of being humiliated, tired of being kicked about by brutal feet of oppression.
There comes a time, my friends, when people get tired of being plunged across the abyss of humiliation, when they experience the bleakness of nagging despair. There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glimmering sunlight of last July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an Alpine November."
Joint Committee for Ethnic Minorities in Wales                                                  09 April 2003