Bermuda’s franchise evolved very slowly over the years, starting in 1620 with a property-based vote which was restricted to males twenty-one years and over and which, although subject to occasional revision, collectively prevailed as the key criteria for voting in general elections until 1944, when women property-owners were allowed to cast ballots and to run as candidates for seats in the House of Assembly and for municipal and parochial offices. This major breakthrough in the history of the franchise was followed in the 1960’s by the long-overdue abolition of the elitist property vote, the introduction of universal adult suffrage and, in later years, by the lowering of the minimum voting age to eighteen in 1990 and the establishment of single-seat constituencies in 2003.

The following time-line highlights some of the watershed developments in the evolution of Bermuda’s Legislature and electoral system. It also provides supportive background information, which helps to explain why and how we moved towards the attainment of the goals of universal adult suffrage and single-seat constituencies (with, as near as possible, equal numbers of voters) in the second half of the twentieth century and up to the present time.

1612

Three years after the wreck of the “Sea Venture” on Bermuda’s reefs in 1609, the islands were officially settled and placed under the direct control of the Virginia Company, a group of businessmen who had already been issued with a charter to develop Virginia as a colony in 1607.

1615

The management of the newly-fledged colony was transferred from the Virginia Company to the Somers Island Company (otherwise referred to in this study as the Bermuda Company), which appointed Bermuda’s Governors on a regular basis until 1684, when direct responsibility for running our affairs was assumed by the British Government.

1612-1619

Bermuda’s first two long-term Governors, Richard Moore (1612-1615) and Daniel Tucker (1616-1619), administered the colony (inclusive of the judicial responsibilities and the making of laws) with the assistance and advice of Councillors and other officers, but without an elected Legislature officially in place.

1620

On 1 st August 1620, Governor Nathaniel Butler, who assumed office in 1619, responded to explicit instructions from the Bermuda Company by convening Bermuda’s first Parliament in St. Peter’s Church in St. George’s, the site of the colony’s first settlement.

The Parliament of Virginia had met in the previous year, but after the American colonies achieved their independence in 1783, Bermuda acquired the distinction of possessing the oldest Legislature in the Commonwealth outside the British Isles, whose Parliament, along with those of the Isle of Man and Iceland, predated ours by several hundred years.

The Parliament of 1620 consisted of the Governor and his Council, a Secretary (who also served as the Speaker), the Bailiffs of the tribes, “such of the Clergie as the Governor thinks most fit” and sixteen elected male representatives, two from each of the eight tribes (later called parishes) into which the colony had been divided by Richard Norwood’s first survey of the islands, carried out during the tenure of Governor Daniel Tucker. The representatives on this occasion were selected by “voice vote” (open balloting) by male landowners. This was the first example locally of an election franchise for seats in Bermuda’s Legislature which was restricted to males and which was property-based.

In later years, the elected representatives (the forerunner of the present House of Assembly) and the Council (with the Governor in attendance) met separately, with legislation passed by the former being sent on to the Council for approval.

In the same year, work began on the construction of a Town Hall (Sessions House) in St. George’s. The building, the first administrative structure in Bermuda constructed entirely of stone and now referred to as the State House, served (after completion three years later) as the meeting place for Parliament on numerous occasions until 1815, when the seat of government was transferred to Hamilton, which had replaced the Town of St. George as the capital of Bermuda.

1622

The laws of the Bermuda Company were promulgated in 1622, outlining, inter alia, the roles and status of the Governor, the Governor’s Council and the elected Assembly. Included in these laws was a stipulation that each of the eight tribes (parishes) was to elect four members to the Assembly, while the occupiers of the general lands (i.e. the lands which were held by the Bermuda Company) were entitled to choose eight individuals, bringing the total complement of elected representatives to forty.

The main functions of the Assembly were to formulate and pass legislation (which was not to be contrary to the laws of Britain and which could be vetoed by the Governor and his Council, acting on behalf of the Bermuda Company) and to manage the finances of the colony, the latter prerogative specified in Law 143 and worded as follows:

“The Governour shall not lay any taxes or Impositions upon the Lands in the Summer Ilands; or upon the people or Commodities, otherwise then by the authority of the generall Assembly; to be levied and imployed as the said Assembly shall appoynt.”

There is also a reference in Law 120 to the Secretary’s role. Apart from his many other responsibilities outside of Parliament, his main functions were outlined as follows-

“The Secretary shall also in all Generall Assemblies, hold the place of Speaker; and have care that all things proceed and passe in due order; and shall keepe a Register Booke of all the Acts there passed being first signed by the Governor and Councell present.”

Some years later (1691), St. George’s was referred to as the ninth parish with representation equal to the other parishes (four members each), thereby lowering the total of the elected representatives from all the constituencies to thirty-six. That number was increased to forty as a result of legislation enacted in 1966 and remained at that level until the 2003 election, when representation in the House of Assembly reverted to thirty-six members as a direct result of electoral boundary changes and the introduction of single-seat constituencies.

1684

Direct control of the administration of Bermuda was transferred from the Bermuda Company to the British Government. Following this transfer of authority, British-appointed Governors, representing the Crown, played an all-encompassing executive role in the management of our affairs for almost three centuries.

This role changed dramatically in 1968 with the implementation of a written Constitution, which shifted most of the responsibility for the internal governance of Bermuda from the Governor to the elected representatives of the people and appointed members of the Legislature- i.e. the members of Parliament, a bicameral institution consisting of an elected House of Assembly (the Lower House) and an appointed Legislative Council (the Upper House). The latter of the two, which was created by Letters Patent in 1888, was renamed the Senate following a Constitutional Conference held at Warwick Camp in 1979.

1687

The first elected Assembly convened under the direct authority of Britain met in September 1687 and passed twenty-five pieces of legislation, one of which established a Judiciary, with provisions for a Chief Justice and five assistants - a development which removed judicial responsibilities from the Council’s portfolio and enabled that body to concentrate more on its advisory functions and legislative affairs.

Another Bill passed by the Assembly in the same year proposed to reduce the number of representatives in each parish from four to two, but the legislation was never brought into operation because there was no formal communication of the Royal assent - a necessary final step in the law-making process.

1691

An Act was passed which confirmed that all parish constituencies, including St. George’s, were entitled to four representatives in the House of Assembly. The relevant section of the legislation was worded as follows-

“In every General Assembly hereafter to be held and called in these islands, there be chosen four representatives for each of the respective tribes in these islands, and four for the town and parish of St. George’s.”

1789

Legislation was passed to give statutory recognition to the property-based criteria for the franchise and for candidates in general elections. This Act, which closely paralleled relevant British law at the time, established minimum property values of forty and two hundred pounds for voters and election candidates respectively.

1815

Hamilton replaced the town of St. George as the capital of Bermuda in 1815. The first gathering of the House of Assembly in the new capital took place in the Town Hall on Front Street in the same year. In 1826, the Assembly moved to the Sessions House on Parliament Hill, its meeting place ever since.

1827

An Act was passed by the Legislature “to Ameliorate the Condition of Slaves and Free Persons of Colour”, this being the first time in the history of Bermuda that a comprehensive law had been enacted to define the rights of the black population. Although slaves were now allowed to own property under the new legislation, they, along with free Blacks, could not vote in general elections or run as candidates for public office.

1834

Prior to the Emancipation of the slaves throughout the British colonies on 1 st August 1834, legislation was passed locally which virtually doubled the property value qualifications for voting, for running as candidates for House of Assembly seats and for municipal and parochial offices.

This across the board increase in property value voting requirements made it quite clear that the Legislature of the day wanted to protect the status quo by restricting the opportunities for the newly-emancipated slaves (and those Blacks who had been free citizens prior to Emancipation) to become directly involved in the management of Bermuda’s affairs. This was borne out by an official despatch from Governor Chapman, which highlighted the injustice of the new law by observing that, with the new legislation in place, there would be only thirty-four eligible black voters and only three Blacks who would be qualified to run as candidates in general elections. Those Whites who did not own real estate of the required value also suffered from a political impotence induced by the restricted property-based franchise, the number of qualified electors at that time (and well into the twentieth century) amounting to a very small percentage of the total adult population.

1841

Bermuda adopted the United Kingdom pound sterling as the official legal tender. As a result, the previous property values legislated in 1834 for voting in general elections and vying for representation in the House of Assembly were now expressed in pounds sterling – sixty pounds sterling for the right to vote (previously one hundred pounds in Bermuda currency) and two hundred and forty pounds sterling to qualify as a candidate (previously four hundred pounds in Bermuda currency). The conversion to pounds sterling also impacted on the property qualifications in elections for the offices of Mayor, Aldermen and Common Councillors in the municipalities of Hamilton and St George’s and for positions on the parish vestries.

1874

Following the enactment of a similar measure in Great Britain two years earlier, legislation was passed to introduce the secret ballot in Bermuda, a momentous procedural change which reduced the possibility of recrimination and reprisal often associated with open voting and encouraged a strategy referred to as “plumping”. This was the practice of an elector deliberately restricting his vote in a parish constituency to only one of the names listed on the ballot sheet, the underlying purpose being to increase the election chances of a preferred candidate.

1881

There were slightly more than eight hundred registered voters in Bermuda at this time, a statistic which underscored the fact that the franchise was restricted to a privileged few.

1883

“Plumping” appeared to have played a critical role in the election of Bermuda’s first black member of Parliament, Mr. William H. T. Joell, who was voted in as a representative for the constituency of Pembroke, his success being largely attributable to the support given to him by the Pembroke Parish Political Association.

1888

The Governor’s Council was replaced by two newly-created bodies, an Executive Council and a Legislative Council - the latter serving as the second law-making branch of Government and being referred to as the Upper House. In later years, the Executive Council became the Cabinet and the Legislative Council was renamed the Senate.

1893

The Government of New Zealand enacted legislation which allowed women to vote in general elections.

1895/1896

In two successive years, there were attempts to pilot legislation through Parliament for the express purpose of extending the vote to property-owning women. On both occasions, the franchise Bill was rejected by the Legislative Council by a narrow margin after having passed the House of Assembly.

1900

There were a number of different strands which were woven into the political, economic and social fabric of Bermuda in the first half of the twentieth century. These included the women’s suffrage movement, the black community’s efforts to increase their representation in the House of Assembly and their quest for racial equality, the end of segregation and improved employment opportunities for Bermudians, especially for Blacks, most of whom were relegated to the more menial occupations.

Success in achieving these objectives was inextricably linked to the need for the enactment of progressive legislation designed to address and resolve the key related issues. The first major breakthrough in one of these areas came in 1944 with the extension of the vote to all property-owning women, following which the impetus for achieving universal adult suffrage, racial equality and trade union rights inevitably gathered strength and moved to the forefront of Bermuda’s political and social agenda.

The long-standing discriminatory convention of restricting the vote to male property owners was never enshrined in law until the beginning of the twentieth century when a Parliamentary Election Amendment Act (with a commencement date of 1 st January 1901) actually stated that the right to vote in general elections and the eligibility to run as candidates for the House of Assembly were limited to property-owning males. On the surface, this appeared to be a conservative male reaction to the earlier unsuccessful attempts in 1895 and 1896 to give females the same voting rights as men.

1923

The Bermuda Woman’s Suffrage Society (encouraged by the earlier successes of suffragette movements in Great Britain and the United States, where women gained voting rights in 1918 and 1920 respectively) was founded with about two hundred property-owning females in its ranks and touting as its key objective the extension of the property vote to women. Spearheaded by stalwarts like Gladys Morrell, Doris Butterfield, Edith Heyl, Kate Seon, Anna Maria Outerbridge and Rose Gosling, the Society also had a number of male supporters, including Stanley Spurling (later, Sir Stanley Spurling), Harry St. George Butterfield and Allan Frith Smith (later Sir Allan Frith Smith).

1929

Canada passed legislation which gave women the vote.

1944

The prolonged and frustrating struggle to secure the vote for women ended when the Women’s Suffrage Act, piloted through the Legislature by Henry Tucker (later Sir Henry Tucker), was passed, giving all qualified female property-owners the right to vote and to run as candidates in general elections. In addition, the new law allowed them to cast ballots and vie for the offices of Mayor, Aldermen and Common Councillors in the municipalities of Hamilton and St. George’s and for positions on the parish vestries. The extension of the franchise to women notwithstanding, the increased number of voters on the electoral role amounted to less than three thousand.

1945

During parliamentary debate on a Bill entitled the Parliamentary Election Act 1945, Dr. Eustace Cann moved an amendment to the draft legislation, which, if agreed to by both Houses of the Legislature, would have eliminated the property vote altogether and made universal adult suffrage a reality. Its rejection by the House of Assembly by an overwhelming margin of twenty-five to three revealed that the majority of the members were certainly not ready for any changes to the status quo.

During debate on the same Bill, Dr. Cann also moved an amendment (which was defeated in the House of Assembly by twenty-six votes to five) to eliminate plural voting, a feature of the electoral system which entitled electors to cast ballots in any of the parishes where they owned property satisfying the voting criteria. This entitlement resulted in elections spanning a period of days to allow multiple landowners the time to cast their ballots at the various polling stations located throughout the island.

The legislation, which was returned to the House of Assembly by the Legislative Council on a number of occasions with recommended amendments before finally being passed by both Houses, contained a number of interesting features.

Following on the heels of the Women’s Suffrage Act passed in 1944, the new law included the following provision relating to joint tenancy of freehold estates -

“For the purposes of this Act, persons who are joint tenants in respect of any freehold estate in land shall be deemed to be tenants in common in equal shares in respect of the freehold estate.”

Another section of the Act stipulated that to be eligible to vote in a parish constituency, an elector had to be a British subject who owned a freehold estate in that parish, valued at the last assessment at sixty pounds or more.

A different set of criteria applied to election candidates. In order to qualify as a candidate in any parish for a seat in the House of Assembly, a person had to registered as a Parliamentary elector, own a freehold estate valued at the last assessment at two hundred and forty pounds or more and, “unless a native of these islands”, must have resided “in these islands for a period of not less than five years”.

1946

For the first time in Bermuda’s history, a petition, signed by the Executive Committee of the Bermuda Workers’ Association on behalf of its members and “the great majority of the underprivileged and suffering inhabitants of Bermuda”, was submitted directly to the Colonial Office in Great Britain, requesting an investigation into a litany of grievances relating to Bermuda, including the restricted franchise, segregation and limited occupational opportunities for Bermudians. The document was hand-delivered in London by Dr. E. F. Gordon, the founder and President of the Bermuda Workers’ Association, an organisation which had its genesis in pay disputes involving Bermudian workers at the United States Bases and whose membership had by this time grown to almost five thousand strong.

The Colonial Secretary’s reply came in the form of a strongly-worded document (labelled Command Paper 7093 and sent to the Governor, Admiral Sir Ralph Leatham, K.C.B.), which recommended that the Legislature should examine the local problems alluded to in the petition with a view to making positive and progressive revisions to the colony’s long-standing discriminatory laws and practices.

1948

In response to Command Paper 7093, a Parliamentary Joint Select Committee was set up and, after a prolonged series of meetings, presented a White Paper to the House of Assembly, recommending, inter alia, the gradual extension of the franchise, the eventual elimination of plural voting and the measured expansion of employment opportunities in the Public Service for the black population. The Paper also favoured the continued segregation of the races, but urged equally good facilities for Blacks and Whites.

In the same year, two women candidates, Mrs. Hilda Aitken and Mrs. Edna Wadson, were voted in as the first two female members of the House of Assembly, representing the parishes of Smith’s and Paget respectively.

Since that time, women have played an increasingly important role in the political affairs of Bermuda. Their input and perspectives have contributed immeasurably to our political stability and prosperity; over the years, they have assumed key positions as Ministers in the executive branch of the Government (known as the Executive Council up until 1973, when its title changed to the Cabinet); two of their number have served terms as Premiers of Bermuda- The Hon. Pamela M. Gordon, J.P.M.P. (now Dame the Hon. Pamela F. Gordon, J.P., M.P.) and the Hon. Jennifer M. Smith, J.P., DhumL, M.P. (now Dame the Hon. Jennifer M. Smith, J.P. Dhuml, M.P.); and the first elected member of Parliament to be appointed to the office of Attorney-General was a female (Dame the Hon. Lois Browne-Evans, J.P, M.P.). Following the July 2003 general election, there were eight female members of the House of Assembly, one female member of the Senate and four female Government Ministers.

1953

Despite the limited property-based franchise, nine of the black candidates contesting seats in the general election were returned as members of the House of Assembly. However, black representation fell to six in 1958.

1959

As part of the general thrust to eradicate social injustices in Bermuda, the Progressive Group launched a protest campaign against seating policies in local cinemas, which discriminated against Blacks. This led to a general theatre boycott by the black community, which resulted in those theatres with discriminatory seating policies in place being desegregated within a matter of a few weeks. This development coincided with the termination of other firmly entrenched segregationist practices by hotels, banks, shops and other establishments. The removal of these barriers helped to pave the way for other progressive changes, including a complete overhaul of the franchise and the drafting of Bermuda’s first written Constitution – objectives which dominated the political landscape in the 1960’s.

1960

The Committee for Universal Adult Suffrage (C.U.A.S.), led by Roosevelt Brown (now Dr. Pauulu Kamarakafego), campaigned for universal adult suffrage, the elimination of the property-based vote and the establishment of single-seat constituencies with, as near as possible, equal numbers of voters - reforms which C.U.A.S. considered to be necessary steps for achieving the democratic ideal of “one person, one vote, each vote of equal value”.

1963

The relentless efforts of C.U.A.S., in conjunction with other contributing factors, led to the passage of the Parliamentary Election Act 1963, which introduced universal adult suffrage for all Bermudians, whether they owned property or not, but raised the minimum voting age to twenty-five. In spite of the disenfranchisement of all adults between twenty-one and twenty-five, the legislation effectively increased the potential electorate to approximately 21,000 eligible voters.

The Act also contained an amendment, the “Watlington Amendment”, which gave a second ballot or “plus” vote in the constituencies in which they lived to landowners who owned freehold estates not less than two thousand square feet in area in any part of the island. This resulted in the time-frame for the 1963 election being shortened to one day, instead of being spread over a longer period of time, as would have been the case if plural voting throughout the parishes had been retained.

There was also a section which permitted the inclusion in the franchise of non-Bermudian British subjects who had been resident on the island for a minimum of three years and who had satisfied the age requirement for voting.

Another feature of the new legislation was an amendment which divided the nine parishes of Bermuda into two double-seat constituencies, thereby increasing their total number from nine to eighteen. Total representation in the House of Assembly remained unchanged at thirty-six.

In retrospect, the Parliamentary Election Act 1963, whilst falling far short of achieving all of the objectives espoused by C.U.A.S., represented an interim compromise formula which only partially addressed the wishes of both extremes of the political spectrum - the ultra-conservatives and the reformists. Nonetheless, it did set the stage for the more progressive changes which were to follow three years later.

In the same year, Bermuda’s first political party to contest a general election, the Progressive Labour Party, led by Mr. Hugh Richardson (Chairman), lawyers Mr. Arnold Francis (Public Relations Officer), Mr. Walter Robinson (Secretary) and Mrs. Aurelia Burch, was formed. The Party drew up an election platform and entered nine candidates in the general election, six of whom won seats in the House of Assembly, including Lois M. Browne-Evans (now Dame the Hon. Lois M. Browne-Evans), Bermuda’s longest-serving Parliamentarian, who represented Devonshire North from 1963 to 2003.

Another watershed event associated with the 1963 election was the successful candidacy of Mr. Ralph O. Marshall (later, the Hon. Ralph O. Marshall. J.P., M.P.), the first Bermudian of Portuguese descent to serve as a member of the House of Assembly. Representing the constituency of Southampton West from 1963 to 1993, he also held various portfolios from 1972 onwards as a Cabinet Minister under the United Bermuda Party Government and earned the distinction of being the first Bermudian to serve on the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (C.P.A.), a global family of former and current British colonies (now referred to as British Overseas Territories) bonded by a common heritage of parliamentary practice and procedure based on the British Westminster tradition. More recently, The Hon. Jennifer M. Smith,J.P., DHuml, M.P., (now Dame The Hon. Jennifer M. Smith) was elected to the C.P.A. Executive Committee.

1964

A new political entity emerged on the scene when the United Bermuda Party, led by Sir Henry Tucker, was formed. The group consisted of twenty-four politicians elected in 1963 as Independents and, with a working majority now firmly in place, they assumed effective control of legislative matters in the House of Assembly.

1966

The Parliamentary Election Amendment Act 1966, which came into force on 1 st January of the same year, abolished the “plus” vote and extended the franchise to include every adult Bermudian (by birth or grant) twenty-one years and over. The entitlement to vote, which had been put in place in 1963 for resident non-Bermudian British subjects of three years’ standing, still remained on the statute books, but was later revisited to exclude those who had taken up residence in the island after 1 st May 1976.

In addition, the new legislation divided Pembroke, the most densely populated parish by far, into four double-seat constituencies, effectively increasing its representation in the House of Assembly to eight members and taking the total for the nine parishes to forty.

Bermuda’s first Constitutional Conference was convened in the United Kingdom later in the year, with eight United Bermuda Party and three Progressive Labour Party representatives in attendance, along with three members of the Legislative Council and four independent politicians from the House of Assembly. This meeting culminated in the drafting of Bermuda’s first written Constitution, which, inter alia, laid out a broad and comprehensive framework for governing the island and, in keeping with the legislation passed earlier, eliminated the “plus” vote, instituted universal suffrage for adults twenty-one and over and confirmed the increase in the number of constituencies to twenty .

The document, which was given majority support by the United Bermuda Party representatives and other individuals attending the Conference, was also approved by the United Kingdom Government, but failed to gain the full acquiescence of the Progressive Labour Party delegates, who drafted a Minority Report, one of the main arguments in that document being that each electoral district should contain, as near as possible, equal numbers of voters to ensure the creation of a fairer franchise infrastructure for holding elections. Another Minority Report was submitted by two independent members of Bermuda’s delegation to the conference- Sir John Cox, C.B.E., J.P. and Mr. H.T. Watlington, C.B.E. - one of its suggestions being the restoration of the property vote.

1967

In February, the United Kingdom Government passed the Bermuda Constitution Act, which formally approved Bermuda’s first written Constitution.

1968

1968 - Another Parliamentary Election Amendment Act, passed in the previous year, came into operation on 1 st January 1968, making technical revisions to such areas as the procedures for applying for registration and the publication of comprehensive lists of registered voters for each electoral district. The legislation left untouched the three-year residency vote for non-Bermudian British subjects, and, in preparation for the next election, contained transitional provisions which established the months of January and February as the registration period for 1968 and stipulated that no general election or bye-election should take place before 30 th April of that year,

The historic election of 22 nd May 1968 was the first to take place within the parameters of universal suffrage for adults twenty-one years and over, the first to be held without the inclusion of a property-based vote and the first to be contested under the banner of party politics. There were three parties vying for seats in the House of Assembly at the time - the United Bermuda Party, the Progressive Labour Party and the Bermuda Democratic Party (a splinter group which surfaced on the political horizon in February 1967).

Bermuda’s Constitution came into effect on 8 th June 1968, effectively doing away with the old representative system and replacing it with a responsible, ministerial form of government, in which most of the Governor’s former internal executive responsibilities were transferred to the party holding the majority of the seats in the House of Assembly.

Under the new formula, the leader of the majority party (his official designation changing from Government Leader to Premier in 1973) chose members of the Legislature from within his party ranks to join him in forming the Executive Council (the executive branch of the Government). The Executive Council was renamed the Cabinet in the same year, and its members from that time onwards were referred to as Cabinet Ministers. The legislation which instituted these changes was entitled “The Constitution Amendment (Consequential Provisions) Act 1973”.

In the aftermath of the election of 22 nd May, in which the United Bermuda Party gained thirty of the forty available seats, the Leader of the United Bermuda Party, Sir Henry Tucker, and eleven other Members of the newly-constituted Executive Council were sworn in as the new Government of Bermuda. The ten remaining seats were won by the Progressive Labour Party, whose elected representatives, under the leadership of Lois Browne-Evans, collectively assumed the role of the Official Opposition when the new Parliament was convened on 14 th June 1968. The Bermuda Democratic Party, which failed to win a seat in the election, disbanded soon afterwards.

Another change stemming from the Constitution was the revised composition of the Legislative Council (now the Senate). The new format provided for eleven members, all of whom were to be appointed by the Governor - four on the advice of the Government Leader (now the Premier), two on the advice of the Opposition Leader and five Independents appointed by the Governor acting in his own discretion. Later, as a result of an agreement reached at the Warwick Camp Constitutional Conference in 1979, the composition of the Upper House (renamed the Senate as a result of the Conference) was revised as follows - five Government appointees, three from the Opposition and three Independents - the change actually taking place the following year.

When delivering the Throne Speech on behalf of the new Government at the opening of the first Parliament under the 1968 Constitution, the then Governor, the Honourable Lord Martonmere, P.C., K.C.M.G., included the following in his opening remarks-

“This Parliament will be operating under the terms of our new Constitution which came into effect on Saturday, 8 th June 1968. Accordingly, this is the first Parliament in the history of the colony which will undertake its legislative duties under a system of responsible rather than merely representative government. For the first time, Members of the House of Assembly have been elected under a system of universal adult suffrage, and plural voting has been abolished.”

1970

The celebration of the 350 th anniversary of Bermuda’s Parliament was highlighted by a visit by His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales. On 21 st October, 1970, the Legislature gathered in St. Peter’s Church, the venue of its historic first meeting, where His Royal Highness officially opened the new Parliamentary Session by reading the Throne Speech handed to him by the Government Leader.

1971

Sir Edward Richards became Bermuda’s first black Government Leader in December.

1973

“The Constitution Amendment (Consequential Amendments) Act 1973” changed the Government Leader’s title to the Premier. Under the same legislation, the Executive Council was renamed the Cabinet, its members now being referred to as Ministers.

1978

“The Parliamentary Election Act 1978” repealed all previous legislation relating to parliamentary elections and revised the framework and regulations for holding such elections. There was no change to the voting age (which remained at twenty-one), the three-year residency vote for non-Bermudian British subjects or to the number of double-seat constituencies.

1979

Bermuda’s second Constitutional Conference was held at Warwick Camp, resulting in amendments to the Constitution which provided for the renaming of the Legislative Council as the Senate (to come into effect at the next general election) and the appointment of either a Member of Parliament or a public officer to serve as the Attorney-General.

Accompanying this change was a proviso that in the event of the Attorney-General being a member of the Legislature, an independent public office carrying the designation of Director of Prosecutions would be created to assume the responsibilities for prosecutions previously vested in a non-political Attorney-General. The decision to appoint a member of the Legislature as Attorney-General was not taken until twenty years later, when Dame the Hon. Lois Browne-Evans was chosen to serve in that capacity.

The composition of the Upper House was revised to include five Government appointees, three from the Opposition and three Independents, the change taking place in 1980.

In addition, the issue relating to the three-year residency vote for non-Bermudian British subjects was addressed and resulted in an amendment to the Constitution rescinding the entitlement to vote for all those non-Bermudian British subjects arriving in Bermuda after 1 st May 1976, while retaining the franchise for those individuals who had been registered as electors on that date.

The Conference also sanctioned an amendment to the Constitution which provided for a statutory lowering of the voting age down to a minimum of eighteen years, an option which was taken up and passed by the Legislature in 1989. The relevant legislation came into force on 1 st January 1990.

1980

The Senate met for the first time in December 1980 under its new title. The Hon. J. M. Smith (now Dame the Hon. J.M. Smith), who later served as Bermuda’s first Progressive Labour Party Premier from November 1998 to July 2003, was the first female to be appointed as a Senator to this body. Before the name change, Dr. the Hon. M. L. Bean, M.B.E. (later, Dame Marjorie Bean) had the distinction of being the first and only female to serve on the Legislative Council.

1984

Following a split in the parliamentary ranks of the Progressive Labour Party, breakaway members formed a new political entity, the National Liberal Party, which subsequently gained two seats in the election of 1985.

1989

The Legislature passed a Bill which lowered the voting age to eighteen, the legislation coming into operation on 1 st January 1990. On this occasion, there was no need to call a Constitutional Conference to institute the change, because there was sufficient flexibility in Bermuda’s Constitution (Section 55 1a, as amended in 1979) which permitted statutory reductions in the qualifying voting age down to a minimum of eighteen years.

This initiative closed what appeared to many to be the final chapter in the struggle for universal adult suffrage. Yet, at this stage in Bermuda’s parliamentary and electoral development, there were still outstanding issues which had been raised, but not resolved, at the London and Warwick Camp Constitutional Conferences. These included issues relating to constituency boundaries, unequal voter distribution, proportional representation and independence.

1993/1995

A series of planned activities took place to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Bermuda’s Constitution in 1993 and the 375 th anniversary of Bermuda’s Parliament two years later.

1998

The Progressive Labour Party, under the leadership of the Hon. J. M. Smith, J.P., M.P., took over the reins of government by topping the polls in the general election of 9 th November, winning a total of twenty-six of the forty available seats. After thirty-four years as the dominant party in the House of Assembly, the United Bermuda Party emerged from the election with a reduced representation totalling fourteen seats and assumed the role of the Official Opposition for the first time in its history.

1999

Dame the Hon. Lois M. Browne-Evans, J.P., M.P., became Bermuda’s first elected Member of Parliament to be appointed as Attorney-General, an appointment which had been made possible by an amendment agreed to at the 1979 Constitutional Conference at Warwick Camp.

Shortly after being elected as the Government, the Progressive Labour Party introduced legislation which, when enacted, replaced the former system of annual voter registration with a more flexible computer-based arrangement. This change, in tandem with a Permanent Parliamentary Register, made provision for continuous voter registration throughout the year. In addition, revised parameters for the identification of intending voters were introduced, and the polling hours on election day were extended from 8am to 8pm.

                                                                         2000

On the 18th August, the Premier, the Hon. J.M. Smith, J.P., M.P., tabled a paper in the House of Assembly outlining proposed changes to Bermuda’s Constitution, the prime target areas being the revision of electoral boundaries and the implementation of single-seat constituencies. In a marathon debate in early December, the House of Assembly resolved by majority vote to request the United Kingdom Government to incorporate the proposed changes into Bermuda’s Constitution.

2002

The Constituency Boundaries Commission, whose responsibility under Bermuda’s Constitution was to reconfigure electoral districts on a periodic basis and within a statutory time-frame, submitted a Report for the House of Assembly’s approval, recommending the establishment of thirty-six single-seat constituencies, redrawn in such a manner as to conform to the natural boundaries, as opposed to the parish boundaries, of Bermuda. The numbers of potential voters in all the recommended constituencies varied somewhat, but came very close to realising the ideal formula of equal numbers of voters for each constituency, an objective which had been championed by the Committee for Universal Adult Suffrage and others as far back as the early 1960’s.

2003

After the Constituency Boundary Commission’s Report received the endorsement of the House of Assembly, the United Kingdom Government instituted an Order-in-Council, which put the Commission’s recommendations in place and enabled the July 2003 general election to take place under the revised electoral format of thirty-six single-seat constituencies. In that election, the Progressive Labour Party was returned as the Government of Bermuda after winning twenty-two seats in the House of Assembly, the remaining fourteen going to the United Bermuda Party.

Appendix 1

Election Results from 1968

1. May 1968 - UBP– 30 seats; PLP–10 seats

2. June 1972 - UBP-30 seats; PLP-10 seats

3. May 1976 - UBP-26 seats; PLP-14 seats

4. December 1980 - UBP- 22 seats; PLP-18 seats

5. February 1983 - UBP-26 seats; PLP-14 seats

6. October 1985 - UBP-31seats; PLP-7 seats; NLP-2 seats

7. February 1989 - UBP-23seats; PLP-15 seats; NLP-1 seat; Independent-1 seat

8. October 1993 - UBP-22 seats; PLP- 18 seats

9. November 1998 - PLP-26 seats; UBP-14 seats

10. July 2003 - PLP-22 seats; UBP-14 seats

Appendix 2

Government Leaders since 1968

Hon. Sir Henry Tucker - Government Leader 1968-1971

Hon. Sir Edward Richards - Government Leader

(title changed to Premier in 1973) 1971-1975

Hon. Sir John Sharpe - Premier 1976-1977

Hon. Sir David Gibbons - Premier 1977-1981

Hon. Sir John Swan - Premier 1982-1995

Hon. David Saul - Premier 1995-1997

Hon. Pamela Gordon - Premier 1997-1998

Hon. Jennifer Smith – Premier 1998-2003

Hon. Alex Scott - Premier 2003-

Appendix 3

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