PARLIAMENT’S Boundaries Committee yesterday adopted the recommendations of the Electoral Advisory Committee (EAC) to increase the maximum number of seats to 65.

However, government members indicated they would oppose some of the proposals in the debate in the House.

Government members Dr Peter Phillips, who has portfolio responsibility for electoral matters, and Dr Paul Robertson, whose South East St Catherine constituency will be affected by the boundary changes proposed by the EAC, both objected to the recommendations.

Dr Phillips refused to accept the advice of Deputy Solicitor General Geoff Madden that the committee could forward a report to the House, including the recommendations to increase the number of constituencies. He said that he could not give any undertaking on a recommendation he still did not think was within the competence of the committee.

Phillips had objected to the recommendation for the increase in the limit on constituencies from the first meeting on February 10 on the basis that the Boundaries Committee did not have the competence to introduce the constitutional measure to change the limit.

Dr Robertson suggested that some of the basic rules adopted by the EAC when he was a member were not observed in the proposed changes to two constituencies – South East St Catherine and North West St James – whose voting populations have already exceeded the upper limit.

“I believe those rules were breached in this case,” Robertson claimed.

At one stage Dr Phillips suggested that there might even have been some”gerrymandering”.

When, government member and House Speaker Michael Peart, who chairs the committee, asked Dr Robertson what rules he felt were violated, he said that, essentially, those for keeping communities together and following natural boundary lines.

In a vague reference to his constituency, Robertson suggested that the boundaries rules had been breached “in at least one case”.

Director of Elections, Danville Walker, said that the best solution to the St Catherine problem was to add two constituencies. However, he said that since South St Catherine had already breached the limit and there was no room constitutionally to make additions, the EAC had to resort to make a determination and he believed that the recommendations made on those boundary changes were the best the EAC could come up with.

When Peart asked Robertson if an increase in the number of constituencies would address his concerns, he said: “I have every sympathy for Mr Walker’s job, but I have served on the EAC for many years and we’ve had to look at many boundaries during that time and I’ve never come away from a decision feeling as I do now.”

Meanwhile, Dr Phillips said he believed that the committee should refer the recommendations to the House of Representatives, but he still believed that it was not competent to propose additional seats.

He suggested that the EAC’s work on the matter had been “improperly and incorrectlydone”.

Opposition member, Abe Dabdoub, who also sits on the EAC, said the committee should not “touch a word” of the EAC’s recommendations, arguing that it would go against the tradition – established since 1979 – not to oppose the EAC’s recommendations.

However, Dr Phillips said that nobody wanted to go against the EAC’s recommendations, but said the recommendations could be revised. He added that he was not opposing the number of seats recommended, but the way in which the EAC arrived at the number.

Meanwhile, Walker warned that if nothing was done now the situation could get worse.

Dabdoub moved that the EAC recommendations be accepted without change. This was seconded by Opposition member Olivia “Babsy” Grange.

Dr Robertson made it clear that while he accepted that matters relating to boundary changes were binding on the committee, he wanted his views to be noted that there was a difference in terms of the standards applied in determining the changes.