Separation of powers shall save our nation

Thank God this last bastion of our democracy is enshrined in our Constitution under separation of powers to protect us from anarchy. The judiciary is our only hope for justice at a time when our Parliament deliberately fails to give us this justice. Justice is the essential nature or constitution of our nation; it is our intrinsic arterial lifeblood whether in politics or administration. Without it the nation’s heart is dead.

There is common talk that the infamous Clause 34 has yielded a beneficial expectation of freedom that will hurt us as a nation with unending sorrow, grief and pain and that the courts, even the highest, shall rule to that freedom. I beg to disagree. We have several test cases where the courts have struck down legislation as ultra vires the Constitution—meaning enactments that are beyond the scope enshrined in the Constitution.

Our Constitution reads conversation for national justice and Clause 34 with its empty Exemption Schedule 6 devoid of money laundering, corruption and scandalous fraud—all matters against the State, goes beyond the scope required for the nation to receive justice under our Constitution.

Proclaiming Clause 34 without the sufficiency of these exemptions under Schedule 6 is enough grounds for the courts to find that Clause 34 is bad law. There can be no benefits under law that is struck down by the court. But there are also other twists and turns of bad law like law designed to deceive, and that is another ground for our courts to strike down Clause 34.

Trinidad and Tobago may bear the dishonour of having the prototype of legal parliamentary deception. Talk about playing smart with foolishness!

The Opposition parliamentarians must apply to the court to be made party to the proceedings filed under Clause 34 and the affidavits of these parliamentarians would be evidence before the court that in order to obtain their required votes to pass the law, a promise was made to include in the Exemption Schedule 6 matters against the State such as money laundering, corruption and scandalous fraud and that such inclusion will have been made before the proclamation of the law.

They will swear the proclamation was flawed in that it was premature as the promise made to gain the law’s effectual passing votes was not fulfilled. But will they file such an affidavit and thus give the nation a chance to get justice, or will they think it politically expedient to spectate and temper their fate with a nation reeling under injustice making a change of governance? The nation watches and prays for justice in what is currently a hollow democracy!

Bobby Gopaul
via email