As we cel­e­brat­ed our 63rd an­niver­sary of in­de­pen­dence, there were many who were dis­ap­point­ed that there was no In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade in Port-of-Spain. The se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices had ad­vised that there was a se­cu­ri­ty risk as­so­ci­at­ed with host­ing the event.

It was ap­par­ent that the se­ri­ous­ness as­so­ci­at­ed with such ad­vice was be­ing chal­lenged by the con­tin­ued de­sire for the pomp and pageantry of a pa­rade. The can­cel­la­tion ad­dressed a more fun­da­men­tal as­pect of the se­cu­ri­ty of the State, which was a wel­come de­vel­op­ment. State se­cu­ri­ty seems not to have as­sumed an air of se­ri­ous­ness af­ter Ju­ly 27, 1990, while state vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties have con­tin­ued to man­i­fest them­selves. It is about time that this more se­ri­ous ap­proach to state se­cu­ri­ty is adopt­ed.

Hav­ing the Pres­i­dent, the Prime Min­is­ter and the Chief Jus­tice in the same place at the same time dur­ing a State of Emer­gency should be a ma­jor con­sti­tu­tion­al con­cern.

What is of greater con­cern is for the state au­thor­i­ties to avoid sit­u­a­tions where the State can be­come vul­ner­a­ble and to re­view how the State does its busi­ness.

On March 16 this year, then prime min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley demit­ted of­fice by res­ig­na­tion at mid­night. Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo did not arrange to have her se­lect­ed prime min­is­ter, Stu­art Young, sworn in at mid­night.

In­stead, the Pres­i­dent arranged a swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny for 10 am on March 17, there­by leav­ing the State with­out a PM for ten hours dur­ing a State of Emer­gency. This was a risk that should nev­er have been tak­en, and the Pres­i­dent ought to have arranged a swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny at mid­night for the PM, who could then ad­vise her on oth­er min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ments.

At 10 am or 3 pm on March 17, there could have been an elab­o­rate cer­e­mo­ny to swear min­is­ters in­to of­fice based on his Cab­i­net reshuf­fle.

The on­ly oth­er time when there was a suc­ces­sion to the pre­mier­ship dur­ing the term of a Par­lia­ment with­out a dis­so­lu­tion was on March 29/30, 1981, when Er­ic Williams died in of­fice. Ac­cord­ing to a re­port by Hugh Lynch in the Ex­press in 1981 un­der the head­ing “Pres­i­dent Tells All In Lon­don”, it is re­port­ed that Pres­i­dent El­lis Clarke, on a vis­it to the UK, ad­dressed a group of T&T na­tion­als at the T&T High Com­mis­sion there. The re­port says the fol­low­ing:

“Mr George Cham­bers, col­lect­ed by a po­lice ve­hi­cle and tak­en to Pres­i­dent’s House, was told about the death around 10.00 pm. And then, said Mr Clarke, you had to sit down and find out who was go­ing to be Prime Min­is­ter–some­thing that was re­solved be­tween two and three in the morn­ing. All the doc­u­ments … that had to be signed were signed by 3.30. What I had to say to the pub­lic, I wrote be­tween 4 and 5 in the morn­ing. I left home at sev­en-fif­teen in the morn­ing, and the na­tion was told at 8 o’clock in the morn­ing. That was the tran­si­tion. I (sic) has moved smooth­ly. The coun­try is go­ing on.” (Ex­press, Sep­tem­ber 3, 1981, p 3).

The coun­try was pre­sent­ed with a prime min­is­ter who had been ap­point­ed in the dead of night and could then ad­vise the Pres­i­dent about min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ments. The metic­u­lous de­tail out­lined by Pres­i­dent Clarke con­firmed the se­ri­ous­ness of the man­ner in which he han­dled the sit­u­a­tion of the coun­try not hav­ing a prime min­is­ter when a lead­er­ship vac­u­um was cre­at­ed by death. The same ap­plies to res­ig­na­tion.

That sit­u­a­tion was un­planned and was ad­dressed on the spur of the mo­ment. Not so on March 16-17, when there was no prime min­is­ter for ten hours. As soon as he was ap­point­ed, Stu­art Young dis­solved Par­lia­ment the next day, which meant that the State of Emer­gency could on­ly be ex­tend­ed af­ter its end date of April 13, if re­quired, if sec­tion 68(4) of the Con­sti­tu­tion was in­voked. That sub­sec­tion per­mits the Pres­i­dent to re­call the dis­solved Par­lia­ment on the ad­vice of the PM to con­duct emer­gency busi­ness. The Par­lia­ment would then stand dis­solved again on the elec­tion day.

These se­cu­ri­ty vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties do not on­ly ap­ply to the pre­mier­ship but al­so to pres­i­den­tial tran­si­tions, where­by one pres­i­dent demits of­fice at mid­night and the suc­ces­sor is sworn in­to of­fice lat­er the next day. Be­ing with­out a pres­i­dent for sev­er­al hours is a ma­jor se­cu­ri­ty risk un­less there is a mid­night swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny.

Pres­i­dents can be sworn in at mid­night, and the pomp and cer­e­mo­ny of the in­au­gu­ra­tion can be held lat­er with a pres­i­dent who is prop­er­ly in of­fice.

State se­cu­ri­ty ought not to be tak­en for grant­ed and com­min­gled with cel­e­bra­to­ry oc­ca­sions in a man­ner that presents risks. Hope­ful­ly, this cur­rent State of Emer­gency will force an al­ter­ation of the cul­tur­al de­sire for a fete over se­ri­ous state se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures.

Prof Hamid Ghany is Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI.