The British government and Governor Sir John Vereker should be commended for keeping their word by calling for submissions on formalising how the Bermuda Constitution should be changed.

As the long debate over the move to single-seat constituencies demonstrated, the lack of a clear and understandable mechanism for effecting changes is badly needed.

While few would disagree with the electoral system now in place, there is nothing to stop this Government or any other from changing the system by a simple majority in the House of Assembly.

That is an inherently unstable system for a document and a set of guarantees that the public should be able to rely on for long from on election to the next.

However, no Constitution is a perfect document, and a balance has to be achieved so that amendments that have broad popular support can be put in place.

With that in mind, the proposals put forward by the Government, some of which have been well aired in the past couple of years, are worth considering.

One concerns whether amendments should be decided by Parliament, and if so, whether a ?super-majority? of two-thirds or even three-quarters of the House should be required.

An alternative is to have the questions decided by referendum, either in tandem with a General Election or through a separate vote. Again, it would have to be decided whether a change would have to be approved by a simple majority of those voting, a simple majority of all registered voters or a ?super-majority?.

The questions could also be decided by a combination of the two approaches, with a referendum followed by a vote in Parliament.

At first glance, this seems to be a simple process, although some people will favour a grassroots-based process, while others would prefer elected officials to lead the process and there will be plenty of debate over the sizes of majorities and so on.

However, the Bermuda Constitution is curious in that parts of it are remarkably detailed, getting right down to nomenclature and so on, while others tackle very broad principles.

Those wishing to put in a mechanism need to remember that a too cumbersome process relatively minor changes could bog the whole process down so that minor but necessary changes are almost impossible to make.

In the Governor?s statement, the Foreign Office has called for a transparent process with ordinary citizens and political parties consulted as widely as possible.

That is a good guide for rating Constitutional change too. Ultimately, the Constitution belongs to the public (even if changes must eventually be approved by the UK) and the public should have a say in what changes are made.

That?s why a referendum is the best method for effecting changes to the document.

There are risks that this will be too cumbersome. But the alternative, a vote of the House of Assembly, carries risks of unpopular, or even dictatorial, changes being made by a small cabal of people under the power of a party whip. So putting the changes to the people remains the safest way to protect the Constitution.