Last Wednesday, the Judicial Education Institute held its sixth annual Distinguished Lecture which was delivered by Prof Richard Drayton, Rhodes professor of Imperial History at King's College, London.
Lecturing on the topic Whose Constitution? Law, Justice and History in the Caribbean, Prof Drayton took the audience through a maze of historical data that confirmed for his audience the very British foundations of our constitutional structures.
I was pleased that he cited a quote from Eric Williams from July 19, 1955, that I have used very often in my own writings, in which Williams said:
"Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest to you that the time has come when the British Constitution, suitably modified, can be applied to Trinidad and Tobago. After all, if the British Constitution is good enough for Great Britain, it should be good enough for Trinidad and Tobago."
That statement was made by Williams in Woodford Square in a lecture delivered under the auspices of the Teacher's Educational and Cultural Association, and Drayton delivered his point effectively by saying that Williams had delivered it "just across the road" using his finger to point the way from his perch on the podium in the Hall of Justice.
If there was one statement that highlighted the context of the entire constitutional process for T&T, it was that one. Many people who stepped forward to ask questions or make brief statements before asking a question touched on many aspects that lie at the core of the functioning of the judicial process or impinge on the functioning of the judicial process.
There was an impassioned plea from the president of the Law Association, Reginald Armour, SC, for T&T to accede to the appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ. Armour went on to regale the audience with the virtues of the CCJ.
The occasion was a good one that allowed for a reasonably dispassionate approach to discussion on matters that would otherwise be regarded as contentious. The Chief Justice, Ivor Archie, sought to broaden the responsibility for discussion on constitutional reform by suggesting that it was a responsibility in which many other sectors in society besides the legal profession ought to be involved.
A young student from the US Virgin Islands, who had only been in the country for about six months, made what was one of the more perceptive statements of the evening when she raised the issue of identity in relation to reform and posited that if the Constitution was out of line with our identity then there would be a clear movement to reform it.
That statement tied directly into the Williams narrative of 61 years ago about T&T having "the British Constitution, suitably modified..."
In my own work, I have contrasted Williams' statement with one made by Norman Manley in the Jamaican House of Representatives on January 24, 1962, in which he said:
"Let us not make the mistake of describing as colonial, institutions which are part and parcel of the heritage of this country. If we have any confidence in our own individuality and our own personality we would absorb these things and incorporate them into our being and turn them to our own use as part of the heritage we are not ashamed of."
Manley did not accept the Williams narrative that our institutions should be imported, but rather argued that they were indigenous by evolution and should be embraced as ours.
While his comments were made in relation to Jamaica, they have currency throughout the entire Commonwealth Caribbean insofar as they establish that our institutions are indigenous by virtue of colonial evolution and continuance.
This has obviously been lost on the proponents of the CCJ to replace the Privy Council. For many people, the Privy Council is not alien to their societies and so the argument about "completing the cycle of independence" is intellectually deficient because of the organic links between our constitutional history and our institutional bases.
The knighthood and membership of Her Majesty's Privy Council are deeply cherished and desired gold standards of Commonwealth Caribbean public and judicial service recognition. There is a natural organic link between our CCJ and the Privy Council insofar as knighthoods and membership of Her Majesty's Privy Council are concerned.
Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados and St Lucia have instituted their own national awards which now have locally-created knighthoods as their highest awards. The conferment of the titles of "Sir" and "Dame" have continued along the path outlined by Norman Manley some 54 years ago in Jamaica, to the extent that the evolutionary process has now made knighthoods part of the local recognition for national awards.
The oath of office for a Privy Counsellor is indeed very burdensome on the individual to protect the person of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, her heirs, and her successors.
We argue about this matter without recognising the natural organic connection between the two. We live in a region whose identity is defined by its connection to the British honours system, whether you take the Williams narrative of 1955 or the Manley corollary of 1962.