same sitting.

It is even more unusual for the Senate to reject three, as it would have on Wednesday had Independent Sen. Jeanette Cannonier not mistakenly voted for legislation allowing funeral homes to operate limousines.

Under the Constitution, the Senate is intended to check the elected majority in the House of Assembly in the event that poor legislation or policies are pushed through.

It is also intended to balance the partisanship of the party system by raising different ways of looking at issues and pointing out potential pitfalls which an elected Government of mainly like-thinking people may have overlooked.

For that reason, the Senate's five Government members can be outvoted if all three Independent members join with the three Opposition members to stop or delay a bill.

Because Bermuda is a democracy, the appointed Senate cannot hold up legislation forever; if the elected House passes a bill again in its original form, it automatically becomes law after 12 months.

When the Constitution was drafted, some hoped the Senate would operate in much the same way as Britain's House of Lords or the Canadian Senate, where "wise heads'' and veteran politicians could, in the more collegial atmosphere of the Senate, bring the benefit of their experience to bear and temper the excesses of their younger colleagues.

It hasn't exactly worked out that way. With some notable exceptions, both parties have used the Senate as a proving ground for young politicians.

The Independent Senators, appointed by the Governor, better fit the ideal.

Retired civil servants with wide experience of government are often appointed, along with community leaders who are not active supporters of political parties.

They bring a different viewpoint to the Senate and can stop legislation which is wrong-headed or poorly drawn up.

That is what happened on Wednesday. The Independents felt the Trade Union Amendment Act failed to adequately define which managers would be eligible to join unions. They agreed to raise the ceiling on rent controlled properties, but did not accept that removing the exemption on homes built after 1983 was necessary.

And they would have rejected the "funeral limo bill'' -- sought by just one funeral home, apparently -- but for Sen. Cannonier's error.

In the two cases where the bills were rejected or amended, the Independents fulfilled their role; they found weaknesses in legislation and asked the House to look at it again.

But Independents need to weigh how they vote carefully. If they side with the Government or the Opposition all the time, they could be accused of partisanship.

There have been suggestions that Sen. Alf Oughton, the former chief executive officer of Belco, Sen. Walwyn Hughes, a former Financial Secretary, and Sen.

Cannonier, the former chairman of the Public Service Commission, are closet United Bermuda Party supporters, but their overall voting records do not bear this out. Indeed, retired former civil servants are often more cynical about their former political masters than the public at large.

That the three Senators spoke against three bills on Wednesday has less to do with their own political leanings than with the fact that the three bills were controversial to begin with. After all, four PLP MPs abstained on the limo bill.

If the legislation had not come up in a rush, the effect of the votes would have had less impact; and had Government recognised in the bills on Wednesday that concern was not restricted to the United Bermuda Party and more consultation was needed, then the bills might not have been defeated at all.