What is the Con­sti­tu­tion? (ACT No. 4 of 1976)

The con­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad & To­ba­go is the supreme or high­est law of the land. It must be fol­lowed by the Pres­i­dent, the Prime Min­is­ter, Min­is­ters of Gov­ern­ment, the Chief Jus­tice, the ju­di­cial arm of the State, all State and pub­lic of­fi­cials and all the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go. It sets out the struc­ture and type of gov­ern­ment we must fol­low and what pow­ers they have. It makes sure that your rights are pro­tect­ed and sets up in­sti­tu­tions to en­sure that the gov­ern­ment and oth­er State of­fi­cials do not abuse your rights.

All oth­er laws in the coun­try must fol­low the Con­sti­tu­tion, but the con­sti­tu­tion does not re­place these laws. In­stead, it sets out the stan­dards, which they must fol­low. Think of it as the foun­da­tion of a house all oth­er laws are like the doors, walls, win­dows and roof. When you build a house, what it looks like will de­pend on what the foun­da­tions are. So too, all the oth­er laws in the coun­try de­pend on what the Con­sti­tu­tion says.

The Con­sti­tu­tion is al­so much hard­er to change than oth­er laws. Par­lia­ment can usu­al­ly change oth­er writ­ten laws if more than 50% of the Mem­bers of par­lia­ment who are present sup­port the change. This is called a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty.

The Con­sti­tu­tion how­ev­er, needs what is called a Spe­cial Ma­jor­i­ty in or­der for Par­lia­ment to change any of its pro­vi­sions. Some im­por­tant and fun­da­men­tal parts of the Con­sti­tu­tion, such as the En­shrined Rights, need a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty of not less than two thirds of all the mem­bers of each House of Par­lia­ment, in or­der for these to be changed in any way. Oth­er pro­vi­sions in the con­sti­tu­tion are equal­ly dif­fi­cult to change, re­quir­ing dif­fer­ent spe­cial ma­jori­ties.

Be­cause it is so dif­fi­cult to change our Con­sti­tu­tion, it means that gov­ern­ments have to fol­low its rules as well. These rules stay the same even if the gov­ern­ment is changed. In that way the Con­sti­tu­tion helps en­sure our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic way of life and the sta­bil­i­ty of our gov­ern­men­tal in­sti­tu­tions.

What is Democ­ra­cy?

Democ­ra­cy is one of the ways of gov­ern­ing a coun­try. It is based on the idea that every­one in a coun­try should have a say about how the coun­try is run. But, be­cause it is not pos­si­ble for every­one to be in Par­lia­ment, peo­ple choose oth­er peo­ple to rep­re­sent them in Par­lia­ment and to make de­ci­sions for them. These peo­ple are cho­sen dur­ing an elec­tion when peo­ple vote for who they be­lieve can best rep­re­sent them.

Where did the Con­sti­tu­tion come from?

Our Con­sti­tu­tion was en­act­ed (or put in­to law) by Par­lia­ment on March 29, 1976 by Act No. 4 of 1976 and took ef­fect on Au­gust 1, 1976. It is some­times called the Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion be­cause it trans­formed us from an In­de­pen­dent Na­tion with Queen Eliz­a­beth II as our Head of State to a Re­pub­lic, with a Pres­i­dent as our Head of State.

Be­tween the time of In­de­pen­dence in 1962 to when the Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion was put in­to ef­fect, we had an­oth­er Con­sti­tu­tion called the In­de­pen­dence Con­sti­tu­tion, which was Trinidad and To­ba­go’s first writ­ten Con­sti­tu­tion.

Why is the Con­sti­tu­tion so im­por­tant?

As cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go we some­times take for grant­ed our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic way of life and the sta­bil­i­ty and or­der of our na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions. Some oth­er coun­tries had to strug­gle, and some are still fight­ing, for what we have en­joyed for many years.

It is im­por­tant for all of us to ap­pre­ci­ate that our con­sti­tu­tion sets the struc­ture for our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic na­tion and en­sures that its fun­da­men­tal rules are fol­lowed by cit­i­zens and gov­ern­ment alike. It is the ba­sis for what is some­times called THE RULE OF LAW, where every­one fol­lows es­tab­lished and rec­og­nized rules rather than yield­ing to ar­bi­trary or ir­ra­tional ac­tions and de­ci­sions. If there were no Rule of Law there would be an­ar­chy and con­fu­sion.

WHAT ARE YOUR RIGHTS?

THE EN­SHRINED RIGHTS

To pro­tect democ­ra­cy and pre­vent abuse of pow­er the Con­sti­tu­tion at sec­tion 4 con­tin­ues to recog­nise, as it did in the In­de­pen­dence Con­sti­tu­tion, that in Trinidad and To­ba­go there have ex­ist­ed and shall con­tin­ue to ex­ist with­out dis­crim­i­na­tion by rea­son of race, ori­gin, colour, re­li­gion or sex these hu­man rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms, en­joyed by each in­di­vid­ual:

• The right to life, lib­er­ty, se­cu­ri­ty of the per­son and en­joy­ment of prop­er­ty. These can­not be tak­en away by the State ex­cept by due process of law.

• The right to equal­i­ty be­fore the law and the pro­tec­tion of the law.

• The right to re­spect for an in­di­vid­ual’s pri­vate and fam­i­ly life.

• The right to equal­i­ty of treat­ment from any pub­lic au­thor­i­ty in the ex­er­cise of any func­tions.

• The right to join po­lit­i­cal par­ties and to ex­press po­lit­i­cal views.

• The right of a par­ent or guardian to pro­vide a school of his own choice for the ed­u­ca­tion of his child or ward.

• Free­dom of move­ment.

• Free­dom of con­science and re­li­gious be­lief and ob­ser­vance.

• Free­dom of thought and ex­pres­sion.

• Free­dom of as­so­ci­a­tion and as­sem­bly.

HOW ARE THESE RIGHTS EN­JOYED?

These rights set out very broad prin­ci­ples and it is up to the Courts as Guardians of the Con­sti­tu­tion to in­ter­pret these prin­ci­ples and ap­ply them to many dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions.

You must re­mem­ber that these rights, as broad prin­ci­ples, can be and in some cas­es are lim­it­ed by law be it writ­ten law or by ju­di­cial de­ci­sions.

EX­AM­PLE: The ‘bare’ right of free­dom of ex­pres­sion does not give the press, or any­one for that mat­ter, the au­thor­i­ty to law­ful­ly de­fame an­oth­er per­son’s char­ac­ter, or ex­pose any oth­er per­son to shame or ridicule. This is an ex­am­ple of where this right has been lim­it­ed by the laws gov­ern­ing slan­der and li­bel.

Un­der­stand that rights are nec­es­sary for pre­serv­ing your lib­er­ty and equal­i­ty. In a tru­ly free so­ci­ety every­one has rights, but these must be lim­it­ed for if every­one were to en­force their rights against each oth­er at the same time, the very free­dom that we take for grant­ed will dis­ap­pear.

Rights can al­so be sus­pend­ed or tak­en away for a short time dur­ing a State of Emer­gency. The gov­ern­ment can on­ly call a State of Emer­gency when:

• The se­cu­ri­ty of the coun­try is threat­ened by war.

• There is a pub­lic emer­gency as a re­sult of an earth­quake, hur­ri­cane, flood, fire, and out­break of pesti­lence, in­fec­tious dis­ease or oth­er calami­ty.

• If pub­lic safe­ty is en­dan­gered or about to be en­dan­gered, or a large part of the com­mu­ni­ty is de­prived of sup­plies or ser­vices es­sen­tial to life.

EN­FORC­ING THESE RIGHTS

The Con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides that any per­son who al­leges that any of his rights, as stat­ed, have been, or is like­ly to be in­fringed can, by way of a spec­i­fied pro­ce­dure, go be­fore the High Court to en­force those rights. The Con­sti­tu­tion, by set­ting out these fun­da­men­tal hu­man rights and free­doms and pro­vid­ing a way by which they are to be de­ter­mined and en­forced, pro­tects the peo­ple from any abuse of pow­er by the State.

SAFE­GUARD­ING OUR DEMOC­RA­CY

THE STATE AND SEP­A­RA­TION OF POW­ERS

The Con­sti­tu­tion in its very first sec­tion sets out that:

“The Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go shall be a Sov­er­eign De­mo­c­ra­t­ic State”

Our Con­sti­tu­tion has been set out to di­vide the gov­ern­ment in­to what is known as the three arms of the State, these are:

• THE LEG­IS­LA­TURE (PAR­LIA­MENT)

• THE EX­EC­U­TIVE

• THE JU­DI­CIA­RY

Each arm has a dif­fer­ent job to do and each has the pow­er to do cer­tain things on­ly. This is so be­cause each arm is able to check on the oth­er to en­sure that none abuse their pow­er. This is called the SEP­A­RA­TION OF POW­ERS.

THE LEG­IS­LA­TURE (PAR­LIA­MENT)

Par­lia­ment is charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for mak­ing laws for the peace, or­der and good gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. These laws must be sub­ject to the Con­sti­tu­tion.

Par­lia­ment is re­al­ly com­posed of three parts:

• The Pres­i­dent

• The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (some­times called the Low­er House)

• The Sen­ate (some­times called the Up­per House)

The Pres­i­dent plays an im­por­tant role in sign­ing the laws that are passed in Par­lia­ment. By do­ing so he

en­acts or puts them in­to le­gal force.

THE HOUSE OF REP­RE­SEN­TA­TIVES is made up of 36 elect­ed mem­bers and a Speak­er, who may or may not be a mem­ber of the House. The Speak­er pre­sides over the pro­ceed­ings of the House in the way a Chair­man does over a meet­ing.

THE SEN­ATE is made up of 31 Sen­a­tors, who are not elect­ed, but ap­point­ed as fol­lows:

• 16 se­lect­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter (Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tors)

• 6 by the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion (Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tors)

• 9 by the Pres­i­dent (In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors)

THE EX­EC­U­TIVE

They put the laws passed by par­lia­ment in­to ac­tion. They in­clude Cab­i­net, Min­istries and De­part­ments of gov­ern­ment, statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ties and gov­ern­men­tal in­sti­tu­tions.

THE JU­DI­CIA­RY

This arm of the State deals with dis­putes be­tween per­sons, en­force­ment of the Crim­i­nal laws and the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the laws passed by Par­lia­ment (in­clud­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion).

Mem­bers of the Ju­di­cia­ry (the Judges) are in­de­pen­dent of the Ex­ec­u­tive, and their ap­point­ment and terms and con­di­tions of of­fice are dealt with by an in­de­pen­dent com­mis­sion set up un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion (the Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vice Com­mis­sion). In this way they are in­su­lat­ed from any out­side pres­sure and can make free, fair and ob­jec­tive de­ci­sions.

This con­sists of a Supreme Court made up of:

• The High Court, and

• The Court of Ap­peal

The court of Ap­peal hears ap­peals from the High court, Mag­is­trates’ Courts and oth­er Tri­bunals.

In cer­tain cas­es there is a right of ap­peal from the court of Ap­peal to the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of His Majesty’s Privy Coun­cil (the Privy Coun­cil) in Eng­land.

ELEC­TIONS

The con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides that with the ex­cep­tion of when Trinidad & To­ba­go is at war, Par­lia­ment shall con­tin­ue for five years from the date of its first sit­ting un­less it is dis­solved soon­er. It al­so says that elec­tions for Mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives shall be by se­cret bal­lot and in ac­cor­dance with the first-past-the-post sys­tem (ie the par­ty win­ning the ma­jor­i­ty of seats in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives forms the next gov­ern­ment).

Source: The Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go.