On victor's immunity

Calgary Grit commented a couple of days ago on the Libs' draft constitution which will go before this month's convention. But while some of the reforms look entirely valid, it's remarkable that one new twist hasn't received more attention in its potential for abuse (not to mention actual abuse among the Cons at the moment).

According to Bart:

Interestingly there will only be a leadership review vote after the party loses an election, clearly an implicit condemnation of the Martin tactics of the past decade.

The Libs' planned provision (s. 64(1)) is as follows:

The National Executive, and each EDA President, are responsible to ensure that a ballot (referred to throughout this Constitution as the “Leadership Endorsement Ballot”), in a form approved by the National Executive which permits the voter to indicate whether or not they are in favour of endorsing the Leader, is voted on at the meeting of every EDA held for the purpose of selecting delegates to attend the first biennial convention of the Party held after each general election in which the Leader does not become the Prime Minister.

Now, the Libs would only be following the Cons' lead in deciding that a leader who wins an election becomes entitled to avoid any internal review: see s. 10.6 of the Cons' constitution. But that reality should only offer a cautionary tale as to the effects of such a clause. PMS is currently able to operate without any internal control on his leadership - which can only strengthen the hand of the Cons' insiders as they try to suppress dissent from mere MPs, riding associations or members generally. And that offers one more means by which the Cons' supposed commitment to accountability applies to everybody but the PM himself.

In light of that current reality, it surely speaks poorly for the Libs that their own insiders want to follow the Harper central control model by providing their future leaders with victory-contingent immunity from internal review as well. And while the trade-off may be the potential for more Martin-type shenanigans, that should be a reasonable price to pay to maintain some check on any PM who strays so far from the party's membership as to manage to lose party confidence even after winning an election.

Note that in contrast, the NDP's leadership review process does not change based on election results:

At every convention that is not a leadership convention, a secret ballot vote will be held to determine whether or not a leadership election should be called. If 50% plus one delegates supports the calling of a leadership election, such an election will be held within one year of the convention vote.

On a quick review, the Greens' constitution also allows members to exercise the same review powers regardless of electoral results, though any review is itself only available under the general provision dealing with federal officers: see s. 16.

Which means that regardless of what the Libs wind up passing this month, Canadians do have a choice among parties who believe that electoral success doesn't justify putting a leader above any review by the party's members. And it'll be up to the Lib members to decide whether to endorse and follow PMS' top-down model to concentrate power in any future Lib PMOs, or to recognize that winning power doesn't justify cutting members out of the picture entirely.