A scrip to scrap: Problems with the Financial Intelligence Unit- My column-13 September 2011

Forget the Prime Minister's Veto: Reloaded starring the veto of the choice for Director of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). It's just a distracting sequel to Mr Manning's veto of appointments to the High Commission in London and the Commissioner of State Lands, both recently considered by the Privy Council. It follows an old script, but one which still ratchets up combatants already on political and ethnic high alert. In our embryonic war against crime there are more important matters for our big screen.

This is the sort of script to which the Minister of Finance will not be drawn, yet he landed the lackey's role. He failed to help the PM redraw constitutional lines on the nature of the veto. The July 2011 Privy Council decisions on the Manning vetoes explained the narrow nature of the limitations on the power of veto once the objection was of a general nature.

What the Constitution and Privy Council decisions do not offer the PM is the power to supplant the Public Service Commission's (PSC) choice with a personal preference. It is the current Government which gave the PSC the power to select the FIU's executive, only for the PM to turn around, undermine the PSC and disturb the separation of powers.