EXCLUSIVE: FRANCE BONTE RESIGNS

EXCLUSIVE: FRANCE BONTE RESIGNS

France Bonte to resign as chairman of Constitutional Appointments Authority

News that the Chairman of the Constitutional Appointments Authority (CAA), the erstwhile France Gonsalves Bonte, has tendered his resignation to President James Michel recently surprised many this week. This is so because despite considerable pressure being brought to bear on the government since 1993 to ask Mr. Bonte to step down because of the obvious conflict of interest, the government has stuck to its guns and rode out the storm on more than one occasion. It is not known whether President Michel has accepted the resignation but speculation is rife that President Michel will offer Mr. Bonte something more enticing to compensate for his obvious surrender of position of influence; something the powerful SPPF hierarchy is not known for.

Last week Le Nouveau Seychelles Weekly published a front page article entitled “Seychelles: “A Second Opportunity to Democratise” in which Doctor Bruce Baker and Professor Roy May, from the University of Coventry, in Britain, made these scathing observations: “Judicial abuse now arguably constitutes the single most serious governance issue requiring reform.” The Professors then made a direct attack on the untenable position of Mr. Bonte as Chairman of CAA when they stated: “France Bonte, who is on the Central Committee of the SPPF, is also the Chairman of the Constitutional Appointments Authority, a body responsible for appointing judges. Hence, the judges faced by a prosecution led by the chair of the body that appoints them. We find such a conflict of interest indefensible.”

The Professors were highly critical of the fact that although Mr. Bonte is a member of the SPPF ruling party, he was still appointed chairman of the powerful CAA by the President. The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights argued the same thing in its July 2004 report when they remarked: “Members appointed to the CAA should not be active members of any political party. It is vital that the Seychellois should perceive the CAA to be independent in order for them to have confidence in the persons that the CAA recommends for appointments.”

Mr. France Bonte, it is to be remembered, joined the then SPUP in January 1974 when, as a young man, he was highly impressed with the rhetorics of former President France Albert Rene. In 1982 he took charge of a struggling Trade Union organisation within the the ranks of the SPUP. He was later chosen by Rene to accompany him to Malborough House in London in 1976 to help draft the first Seychelles Constitution. Bonte did not fail to impress and immediately after 1977 Rene picked Bonte again to assist in the drafting of the second Constitution in the second Republic. In 1993, Rene again requested Bonte to join his elite team of intellectuals to sit on the Constitutional Commission to assist in the drafting of the Constitution of the third Republic.

Bonte’s loyalty, commitment and devotion to the SPPF, and Mr. Rene in particular, cannot be questioned since in 1993, under his leadership as Central Committee Member for the electoral district of Grand Anse, he was responsible for bringing victory in both the Presidential and Parliamentary election for the SPPF. He repeated this feat in 1998 at Takamaka and Anse Royale and in Port Glaud in the 2001 and 2006 elections respectively.

Bonte, who read law at Buckingham University, London, in 1982 and passed his Bar in 1986, has also held the post of Master and Registrar of the Supreme Court from 1989 to 1992. Since the report of the Professors are highly critical not only of the appointment of Bonte, but also that of the judiciary as a whole, it remains to be seen whether the judiciary headed by the Chief Justice, who has held this post for over 15 years, will emulate the courageous Bonte and step down to allow Seychelles a second opportunity to democratise.