The doc­trine of in­di­vid­ual re­spon­si­bil­i­ty must not be for­got­ten. The doc­trine of in­di­vid­ual min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is a con­ven­tion used and prac­tised in gov­ern­ments us­ing the West­min­ster Sys­tem that a min­is­ter of the ex­ec­u­tive bears the ul­ti­mate re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the ac­tions of his min­istry and de­part­ment.

It is held that the ac­count­able min­is­ter must take blame and ul­ti­mate­ly re­sign and the rest of the ex­ec­u­tive is not held to be an­swer­able for that min­is­ter's fail­ure. If there are in­stances of cor­rup­tion, acts of mis­be­hav­ior or any oth­er sort of im­pro­pri­ety that are found to have oc­curred un­der the min­is­ter's watch, they are li­able and re­spon­si­ble.

It has been an es­sen­tial con­ven­tion and prin­ci­ple as elect­ed and non-elect­ed of­fi­cials who serve in gov­ern­ment are an­swer­able for gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion and it al­so forces and mo­ti­vates min­is­ters to close­ly scru­ti­nize all ac­tiv­i­ties com­ing from their min­istries.

In this lat­est sce­nario with the re­vo­ca­tion of the Min­is­ter of Jus­tice's min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ment by His Ex­cel­len­cy, the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go on the ad­vice of the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter, we must be re­mind­ed that the doc­trine of In­di­vid­ual min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty en­tails four pre­cepts: In­form and ex­plain, apol­o­gise, take ac­tion and re­sign.

In keep­ing with the pre­ced­ing, one would know that even though Cab­i­net notes are pre­pared by se­nior pub­lic ser­vants, the rel­e­vant min­is­ter has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that when brought to the Ex­ec­u­tive Arm of the State that it must be a true rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the facts and a min­is­ter, as the Prime Min­is­ter stat­ed, "In seek­ing to per­suade the Cab­i­net to ap­prove his/her note, a min­is­ter has a du­ty to present his case ob­jec­tive­ly and ac­cu­rate­ly in the knowl­edge that the Cab­i­net will act on his as­sur­ances and rep­re­sen­ta­tions. The Cab­i­net is en­ti­tled to re­ly and act up­on the state­ments made. It in­flu­ences, in­forms and guides the de­lib­er­a­tions of the Cab­i­net on the par­tic­u­lar is­sue."

While this may be a moot point and de­bat­able to in­fin­i­ty, as a prag­ma­tist we can­not ex­pect the head of the ex­ec­u­tive to check every piece of minu­ti­ae giv­en the man­date as so when it was re­vealed that the for­mer Min­is­ter of jus­tice "had a du­ty to faith­ful­ly and ac­cu­rate­ly rep­re­sent the po­si­tion and views of the Ho­n­ourable Chief Jus­tice and the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

He failed to do so is a se­ri­ous mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion and amounts to ma­te­r­i­al non-dis­clo­sure of rel­e­vant facts to the Cab­i­net which ef­fec­tive­ly pre­vent­ed it from mak­ing an in­formed de­ci­sion." The Prime Min­is­ter told the na­tion that at the Cab­i­net Meet­ing on Au­gust 9, 2012, she specif­i­cal­ly asked the then min­is­ter of jus­tice if he con­sult­ed both men and that the Cab­i­net had the sup­port and ap­proval of both the Chief Jus­tice and the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions."

More­over, the for­mer min­is­ter of jus­tice ad­mit­ted in his de­lib­er­a­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter that he "erred." The rev­e­la­tions as out­lined by the Prime Min­is­ter are a source of se­ri­ous con­cern and re­al­ly should place the doc­trine of in­di­vid­ual min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to the front, giv­en what has un­fold­ed.

While the doc­trine is not reg­u­lat­ed by statute and done most­ly out of con­ven­tion and de­vel­oped as such by prece­dent, we re­al­ly need to look at the fact that the ti­tles giv­en to those in the ex­ec­u­tive/leg­isla­tive/ju­di­cial arms of the State are 'ho­n­ourable' and as such when one has be­haved less than as such, they should do the no­ble thing.

There are many ex­am­ples to cite where the doc­trine of in­di­vid­ual min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty has been used and the min­is­ters at the time did the ho­n­ourable thing and fol­lowed all the tenets of the doc­trine: they in­formed and ex­plained, apol­o­gised, tak­en ac­tion and re­signed.

• Thomas Li­onel Dug­dale, 1st Baron Crathorne, 1st Baronet, from 1945 to 1959, was a British Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty politi­cian. A gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, he re­signed over the Crichel Down Af­fair, of­ten quot­ed as a clas­sic ex­am­ple of the con­ven­tion of in­di­vid­ual min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. The pub­lic in­quiry in­to the Crichel Down events re­vealed a cat­a­logue of in­ep­ti­tude and mal­ad­min­is­tra­tion and re­sult­ed di­rect­ly in the res­ig­na­tion of the Sec­re­tary of State for Agri­cul­ture (Sir Thomas Dug­dale), then a se­nior cab­i­net po­si­tion, and was the first case of min­is­te­r­i­al res­ig­na­tion since 1917. Whilst the un­der­ly­ing case was, in the scale of things, triv­ial, in­volv­ing the trans­fer of some sev­en hun­dred acres of mediocre agri­cul­tur­al land in Dorset, the ram­i­fi­ca­tions for sub­se­quent gov­ern­ment pro­ce­dure have been enor­mous, and it is re­gard­ed as one of the key events lead­ing to the cre­ation of the post of Om­buds­man. Crichel Down was prob­a­bly the first in­stance of close and very pub­lic scruti­ny be­ing di­rect­ed at a Min­is­ter of the Crown in the ex­e­cu­tion of his du­ties

• Sec­re­tary of State for War/Mem­ber of the Privy Coun­cil/Mem­ber of Gov­ern­ment John Pro­fu­mo un­der Prime Min­is­ter Harold Macmil­lan ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion to the Prime Min­is­ter fol­low­ing the scan­dalous af­fair that be­came well-known over the years as the Pro­fu­mo Af­fair. He had served his par­ty for 25 years.

• Regi­nald Mauld­ing re­signed as Home Sec­re­tary in 1972 be­cause of the rev­e­la­tions of the busi­ness prac­tices and ac­quain­tances of the ar­chi­tect John Poul­son. He stat­ed that he had no oth­er op­tion but to re­sign and he wrote his let­ter of res­ig­na­tion to the Prime Min­is­ter and asked that it be read out in the Low­er House of Par­lia­ment-The House of Com­mons.

• In De­cem­ber 1988, Pe­ter Man­del­son, Sec­re­tary of State for Trade and In­dus­try re­signed fol­low­ing the Pay­mas­ter Gen­er­al at the Trea­sury loan of $373,000 to Mr Mendel­son to sup­port his pur­chase of a house in Not­ting Hill. He stat­ed in his res­ig­na­tion let­ter: "I ac­cept that the ex­is­tence of the loan should have been made known to my Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary so as to avoid the ap­pear­ance of a con­flict of in­ter­est."

The cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, SC, undis­put­ed­ly has tak­en a stance that no oth­er prime min­is­ter has in terms of dis­miss­ing some­one from their min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in the wake of ac­tions deemed of­fi­cial mis­con­duct. There have been to date eight min­is­ters who the prime min­is­ter has re­lieved of their du­ties.

This is in stark con­trast to some of her pre­de­ces­sors who have had glar­ing acts of mis­con­duct and left un­scathed-a se­nior Cab­i­net min­is­ter who was nev­er dis­ci­plined for us­ing state funds/tax­pay­ers dol­lars at a wig em­po­ri­um in New York, spend­ing thou­sands on in­fer­til­i­ty treat­ment at a New York cen­tre and with­draw­ing large sums of mon­ey and sev­er­al oth­er acts that were al­lowed to pass by un­pun­ished.

As we cel­e­brate our na­tion's 36th year of be­ing a Re­pub­lic, let us tru­ly ex­am­ine such key is­sues that should oc­cu­py the pub­lic do­main and be part of re­al dis­course on the road to pro­gres­sive na­tion sta­tus in­stead of di­a­tribes and cheap pol­i­tick­ing that some politi­cians are so bent on as was wit­nessed on the evening of Sep­tem­ber 18th-our na­tion needs peo­ple who have re­al so­lu­tions and not re­ac­tionary syco­phants.

Ophe­lius Schae­fer

Mara­cas Val­ley,

St Joseph