Parliament should see legislation setting up the Office of the Ombudsman as soon as next week, and arrangements for absentee voting and a Freedom of Information Act are also legislative priorities, Premier Alex Scott has revealed.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Royal Gazette, Mr. Scot said: “I hope to put it down before we go down this session. So we will make every effort to get it done on the 23rd (of July).”

Provision for the Ombudsman was made in the most recent Constitutional amendments aimed primarily at achieving voter parity. Residents will be able to take their complaints to the Ombudsman when Government services fall short of expectations.

“The Ombudsman brings to the average Bermudian a voice,” Mr. Scott said. “Someone who is available to them when they have concerns about the Government, about governance, about any issue in this country.

“They don't have to go into their pockets for a lawyer, they go to a telephone and call the Ombudsman and he or she will be constitutionally empowered to represent them.

“That is Government empowering someone to take on Government, if necessary, to ensure Bermudians get justice in their country. That has to underscore our commitment to law and good order and justice in Bermuda and is certainly a further step down the road to good governance.”

The Premier added that the FOIA legislation will likely be tabled early in the next parliamentary session and that legislation allowing people to vote from outside Bermuda could well be tabled next week.

“We're taking a lot of hard decisions. That (absentee balloting) commits again the ballot box to the rigours of democracy - people who are outside Bermuda, students in particular, will be able to decide from the vantage point of their college room or if they are working overseas, from their respective places of employment,” he said. “That's going to take quite a bit of management to ensure that the vote is secure and there is no ability to defraud the process. But we have committed ourselves to that also.

“We have used our political capital to take those hard decisions that won't please everyone, but I do believe it will be in the service of democracy in Bermuda.”

Absentee balloting legislation may not have been one of those hard decisions. Both of the major political parties rejected the proposals when they were first mooted by the National Liberal Party some years ago, but by the summer of 2004 just before the General Elections, both were in favour.

And the Opposition United Bermuda Party was outmanoeuvred when it attempted to table a motion of in principle support for the initiative when then Premier Jennifer Smith tabled her own ‘take note motion' saying that a Government committee had been empanelled to study the matter. The UBP motion was killed and Government's Throne Speech last November contained the first firm commitment to table the legislation.

Parliament will break for the summer after next week's sitting. In an interview this week Mr. Scott was keen to stress that Bermuda had a healthy democracy and turned to the circumstances which led to his taking office as proof.

The Progressive Labour Party's victory at last year's General Elections morphed into an insiders' revolt against Ms Smith but “within 72 hours this Government, our parliament, the PLP party, resolved what had to be certainly a serious national question, a serious political issue, a serious constitutional challenge. And we resolved it without one word being shouted in anger in public”.

He added: “Anybody evaluating the strength of our democracy here in Bermuda has to walk away impressed. I dare any leader to naysay what was accomplished.

“We put to the test the PLP's Constitution and we put at rest the PLP Government's commitment to our national Constitution. I would think that many folks after that slept a little easier because they realised that the commitment of this Leader, this country, this Government to democracy was complete. We had a test that we couldn't prepare for and we survived it - impressively, I think.”