For what we believe is the first time in our history, and certainly the first time since Majority Rule, we have two sitting members of Parliament who have been charged with major crimes and face criminal trials.

We will say at the outset that we believe wholeheartedly in the belief that one is innocent until proven guilty.

We also believe in the notion that the will of the people should not be easily thwarted.

However, we do not have a system that gauges the will of the people outside of general or bye-elections.

Long Island member of Parliament Adrian Gibson is accused of receiving $1.1 million in kickbacks from contracts awarded by the Water and Sewerage Corporation during his tenure as its executive chairman.

North Abaco member of Parliament Kirk Cornish has been charged with rape, assault and threats of death.

Both men maintain their innocence. Any decision by the MPs to resign their seats could be viewed by some as an acknowledgement of guilt or wrongdoing.

Gibson is a member of the opposition Free National Movement (FNM).

Cornish, who resigned his position as parliamentary secretary at the prime minister's request, is a member of the governing Progressive Liberal Party (PLP).

That police have no fear of political retribution in charging not only an opposition member of Parliament but a member of the government does give confidence that politics are not at play.

Gibson was the first member of Parliament in 33 years to be charged in court with a crime. The last was Wilbert Moss, the Acklins, Crooked Island and Long Cay MP, who was charged with attempting to bribe a magistrate.

We do not believe any sitting member of Parliament has been charged with rape before Cornish.

There is no legal provision that mandates an MP's resignation from Parliament based on a charge before the courts, not even murder.

Under Article 48 of the constitution, a member's seat would become vacant if that member is placed under the sentence of death or is convicted and serving a sentence exceeding 12 months.

FNM Leader Michael Pintard and Prime Minister Philip Davis are more than welcome to ask the men to resign from the House of Assembly, but they cannot make them.

Gibson was elected amid controversial corruption allegations coming to light, though not in an overwhelming fashion.

Cornish was free of public scandal when he was elected.

Whatever they have been charged with since, Gibson and Cornish embody the will of the voters in their respective constituencies.

But what if the will of the people has changed?

We will say without fear of intelligent contradiction that neither the FNM nor the PLP would run a candidate in any election who had an ongoing criminal case and faced a public criminal trial.

Therefore, the high-mindedness of respecting the will of the people comes into question when the people find their representative in a very different situation than when they elected them.

One avenue to address this might be the implementation of a recall system for MPs.

An election recall system is a mechanism that allows citizens to petition for the removal of an elected official from office before their term is completed.

It gives citizens the power to hold their representatives accountable if they are dissatisfied with their performance, behavior, or decisions while in office.

This is not a novel idea in The Bahamas.

The Minnis administration said it intended to hold a referendum to get the consent of the electorate to introduce a system of recall for non-performing members of Parliament.

It did not do that.

More pointedly, Gibson, who was also a journalist and columnist, held staunch views of the necessity for a recall system before he entered frontline politics.

"A process must be put in place to make politicians directly answerable to their constituents even before a general election is called, rather than the current setup where a lousy MP could 'live fat off the hog' for five years," he wrote in a column called "Honesty in Fighting Corruption" in August 2015.

"An electoral recall is a political device that would undoubtedly be a valuable check on the power of venal, self-serving public office holders, from the local administrative units to the central government. It would perhaps eliminate the notion of a safe constituency/seat, increase an MP's accountability and empower Bahamians to rid their constituencies of certain politicians who appear to be nothing more than lying hypocrites."

Though Gibson's views may have changed, we believe there is still a significant number of Bahamians who agree with his past commentary.

An electoral recall system should at least be explored.

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