?We are ex­am­in­ing to­day the ex­ec­u­tive pow­ers con­tained in the draft con­sti­tu­tion. These ex­ec­u­tive pow­ers would be ex­am­ined in re­la­tion to some of the oth­er pow­ers giv­en to the Ex­ec­u­tive Pres­i­dent in or­der for us to ap­pre­ci­ate the ma­jor changes which would oc­cur in the event the draft con­sti­tu­tion be­comes the Con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We should bear in mind that un­der Clause 40 of the draft con­sti­tu­tion, the per­son hold­ing the of­fice of prime min­is­ter un­der the ex­ist­ing Con­sti­tu­tion shall, at the com­mence­ment of the new con­sti­tu­tion (if it be­comes the new con­sti­tu­tion), would be­come the Ex­ec­u­tive Pres­i­dent un­til a Pres­i­dent is elect­ed un­der the new con­sti­tu­tion. The Pres­i­dent is then elect­ed, af­ter a gen­er­al elec­tion, by the elect­ed mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Clause 96 of the draft con­sti­tu­tion pro­pos­es ma­jor changes to the Cab­i­net sys­tem of gov­ern­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The ex­ec­u­tive au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go would be vest­ed in the Pres­i­dent.

LEFT: ?For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al, Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC.Un­der the ex­ist­ing Con­sti­tu­tion it is al­so vest­ed in the Pres­i­dent but the Pres­i­dent un­der the ex­ist­ing Con­sti­tu­tion is the Head of State and is not the Head of Gov­ern­ment. The draft con­sti­tu­tion pro­pos­es the head of state to al­so be the head of the gov­ern­ment. The draft con­sti­tu­tion, there­fore, pro­pos­es to abol­ish the of­fice of prime min­is­ter. The Ex­ec­u­tive Pres­i­dent, as both Head of State and Head of Gov­ern­ment, would there­fore ex­er­cise the ex­ec­u­tive au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go. He would do this di­rect­ly or through of­fi­cers sub­or­di­nate to him. It is pro­posed in the Draft Con­sti­tu­tion that the Cab­i­net shall con­sist of not more than twen­ty five (25) mem­bers se­lect­ed by the Pres­i­dent in his dis­cre­tion. The mem­bers of the Cab­i­net must in­clude the Pres­i­dent, the Vice Pres­i­dent, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the two ma­jor­i­ty lead­ers from both Hous­es, that is, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate, and sub­ject to Clause 97 (2) such num­bers of min­is­ters as the Pres­i­dent may con­sid­er ap­pro­pri­ate.

Clause 97 (2) states that the Pres­i­dent shall ap­point not more than four mem­bers of the Sen­ate and the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as min­is­ters of gov­ern­ment. The draft con­sti­tu­tion al­so pro­pos­es that the min­is­ters of gov­ern­ment to be ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent, can be peo­ple who are not elect­ed to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives or who are not ap­point­ed to the Sen­ate. Clause 97 (1) states that min­is­ters of gov­ern­ment ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent can be from among peo­ple who are qual­i­fied to be elect­ed as Mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. It is to be not­ed that they on­ly have to be qual­i­fied to be elect­ed and not elect­ed as Mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Un­der the draft con­sti­tu­tion, there­fore, the Cab­i­net may con­sist of many of its mem­bers who are nei­ther Mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives nor of the Sen­ate. Most of the elect­ed Mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives who win their seats on the tick­et of the gov­ern­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ty may not be min­is­ters of gov­ern­ment and would not be mem­bers of the Cab­i­net.

These mem­bers would ob­vi­ous­ly have time to ser­vice their con­stituen­cies be­cause in the present sys­tem, min­is­ters of gov­ern­ment have to ful­fil time-con­sum­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in re­spect of Cab­i­net, their min­istries and the Par­lia­ment. Their con­stituen­cies and con­stituents are ne­glect­ed in many cas­es. Un­der the ex­ist­ing sys­tem the Prime Min­is­ter keeps the Pres­i­dent ful­ly in­formed con­cern­ing the gen­er­al con­duct of the gov­ern­ment. This would change in that there would no longer be a Prime Min­is­ter if the draft con­sti­tu­tion be­comes law. Clause 102 of the draft con­sti­tu­tion re­quires the Pres­i­dent to keep the Par­lia­ment ful­ly in­formed con­cern­ing the gen­er­al con­duct of the gov­ern­ment by ad­dress­ing a joint sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate at least once per year. This would mean that the cer­e­mo­ni­al ad­dress which the Head of State now per­forms in ad­dress­ing Par­lia­ment would be per­formed by the Head of the Gov­ern­ment, who would al­so be Head of State. In or­der to as­sist the func­tion­ing of the ex­ec­u­tive au­thor­i­ty of the State, the draft con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides for the ap­point­ment of Per­ma­nent Sec­re­taries.

The Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion which would be ap­point­ed by the Ex­ec­u­tive Pres­i­dent would ap­point Per­ma­nent Sec­re­taries on con­tract for a pe­ri­od not ex­ceed­ing five years who may be se­lect­ed from ei­ther the pri­vate or pub­lic sec­tor (Clause 105). Un­der this Clause, how­ev­er, a Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary would not be ap­point­ed if the Pres­i­dent sig­ni­fies to the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion his ob­jec­tion to the ap­point­ment of that per­son. The Ex­ec­u­tive Pres­i­dent in ex­er­cis­ing full con­trol of ex­ec­u­tive pow­ers in­clud­ing the gen­er­al di­rec­tion and con­trol of the gov­ern­ment and con­trol of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, would al­so have the ex­ec­u­tive pow­er to par­don any­one be­fore or af­ter the per­son is charged with any of­fence and be­fore he is con­vict­ed of an of­fence (Clause 107 (2)). The Sen­ate shall con­sist of 37 mem­bers, 19 would be ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent act­ing in his dis­cre­tion; sev­en shall be ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent act­ing on the ad­vice of the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion who would, un­der the draft con­sti­tu­tion, now be re­ferred to as the Mi­nor­i­ty Leader; and 11 shall be ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with var­i­ous in­ter­est groups or or­gan­i­sa­tions.

The Ex­ec­u­tive Pres­i­dent there­fore would in ef­fect have the pow­er to ap­point 30 of the 37 sen­a­tors who would com­prise the Sen­ate. The Ex­ec­u­tive Pres­i­dent there­fore, would in ef­fect, have con­trol of the ma­jor­i­ty of mem­bers in the Sen­ate and the con­cept of In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors would no longer ex­ist. The Ex­ec­u­tive Pres­i­dent would have all the pow­ers to ex­er­cise the to­tal ex­ec­u­tive au­thor­i­ty un­der the draft con­sti­tu­tion that is vest­ed in him as Ex­ec­u­tive Pres­i­dent. He would al­so have the con­trol of both the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Sen­ate. This is tan­ta­mount to the Leg­isla­tive and Par­lia­men­tary au­thor­i­ty be­ing vest­ed in the Ex­ec­u­tive Pres­i­dent in re­spect of which he al­so has to­tal con­trol.

Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Tabaquite;

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Civ­il Rights As­so­ci­a­tion.