Gail Alexan­der

Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona has de­fend­ed his new In­de­pen­dent ap­point­ments, hit­ting out at de­trac­tors. Speak­ing at yes­ter­day's cer­e­mo­ni­al par­lia­men­tary open­ing, Car­mona said: "I saw a need to re­tool the com­po­si­tion of the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­to­r­i­al bench. I have lis­tened and I have al­so ob­served for years the gaps in that com­po­si­tion."

He added: "Where were the de­trac­tors in the last three years, when there was no en­er­gy ex­pert on the In­de­pen­dent bench, no per­son of dis­abil­i­ty for some 50 years and no in­ter­na­tion­al­ly- recog­nised ex­pert and aca­d­e­m­ic in fi­nance? Where were you men and women of let­ters?" He said two of his im­por­tant con­sti­tu­tion­al du­ties as Pres­i­dent were the ap­point­ment of In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors and mem­bers of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, with the for­mer be­ing made in his own dis­cre­tion and the lat­ter made by him af­ter the rel­e­vant con­sul­ta­tion.

. "There­fore, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for these choic­es rests en­tire­ly on my shoul­ders. In mak­ing such ap­point­ments, I will al­ways be true to my oath of of­fice to con­sci­en­tious­ly and im­par­tial­ly dis­charge the func­tions of Pres­i­dent. In re­spect of such ap­point­ments, the buck stops with me," Car­mona said. He said the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sion that no one un­der 25 can be a sen­a­tor was a "di­nosaur piece of leg­is­la­tion."

"In every gen­er­a­tion there comes along an ex­cep­tion­al hu­man be­ing un­der the age of 25 and there should be a con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sion for such an oc­cur­rence," he said. "I have a deep re­spect for in­sti­tu­tion­al mem­o­ry and it has its place and rel­e­vance, but I al­so be­lieve in cre­at­ing lines of suc­ces­sion and, for far too long, with con­sec­u­tive gov­ern­ments, we have the same faces with the same old philoso­phies and tired ideas."

Car­mona said meet­ings be­tween the Pres­i­dent and the Prime Min­is­ter pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the Gov­ern­ment to hear the views of the non-aligned in the de­ci­sion­mak­ing process. He ex­plained too that the Pres­i­dent is not oblig­ed to act in ac­cor­dance with ad­vice which is con­trary to the law, that is il­le­gal, un­con­sti­tu­tion­al or out­side of the ju­ris­dic­tion of the per­son giv­ing the ad­vice.

"Just as se­lec­tions prop­er­ly made by me in my own judg­ment are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly re­quired to be ac­cept­ed by oth­ers, like­wise, as Pres­i­dent, I am re­quired to ac­cept the choic­es made by oth­ers in ac­cor­dance with the ap­plic­a­ble con­sti­tu­tion­al or statu­to­ry pro­vi­sions," Car­mona said.

"I will make my own de­ci­sions where I am au­tho­rised by the Con­sti­tu­tion or oth­er law so to do, but in re­spect of mat­ters where the au­thor­i­ty to make the de­ci­sion is vest­ed in an­oth­er per­son, I will fol­low the Con­sti­tu­tion and the law and give ef­fect to their de­ci­sion. "It is still quite prop­er for a Pres­i­dent to coun­sel and warn against any ad­vice or rec­om­men­da­tion that he con­sid­ers to be un­wise, and this I have done, with a mea­sure of suc­cess."

He said it was im­por­tant for the pub­lic to know this, as "in­tel­lec­tu­al dis­hon­esty many times mas­quer­ades as crit­i­cal analy­sis."