He­len Dray­ton

In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors play a cru­cial role in the leg­isla­tive process by scru­ti­n­is­ing pro­posed leg­is­la­tion be­fore laws are en­act­ed. They have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to hold Gov­ern­ment ac­count­able by ques­tion­ing and in­ves­ti­gat­ing pub­lic poli­cies through com­mit­tees and de­bates, there­by pro­vid­ing a check on ex­ec­u­tive pow­er.

The Sen­ate com­ple­ments the work of the elect­ed House and strength­ens the leg­isla­tive process. In Com­mon­wealth and oth­er democ­ra­cies, where such non-par­ti­san par­lia­men­tar­i­ans ex­ist, their role sup­ports a bal­anced par­lia­men­tary sys­tem. They are in­de­pen­dent in­so­far as no po­lit­i­cal whip con­trols them, and they do not rep­re­sent po­lit­i­cal par­ties. They are ap­point­ed by and at the Pres­i­dent’s sole dis­cre­tion, usu­al­ly from among out­stand­ing peo­ple in eco­nom­ic, so­cial or com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions and oth­er ma­jor fields of en­deav­our, con­sis­tent with the re­quire­ments of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

It is mys­ti­fy­ing what pre­cise­ly the is­sue is with sen­a­tors ap­point­ed by Her Ex­cel­len­cy, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, prompt­ing me to ex­am­ine their qual­i­fi­ca­tions and to do so vis-à-vis those ap­point­ed over the past cou­ple of decades. Among the present In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, there is a very strong cross-sec­tion of knowl­edge and decades of ex­pe­ri­ence in rel­e­vant dis­ci­plines to bring to bear on leg­is­la­tion, in­clud­ing two se­nior coun­sels prac­tis­ing in civ­il, in­dus­tri­al, fam­i­ly, pub­lic, ad­min­is­tra­tive, and crim­i­nal law.

The range of oth­er pro­fes­sions in­cludes hu­man re­source strat­e­gy and in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions; high­er ed­u­ca­tion; fi­nance and eco­nom­ics; civ­il so­ci­ety and spe­cial needs– dis­abil­i­ty and their train­ing, de­vel­op­ment and em­ploy­ment; sport and In­di­an cul­ture; busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and strat­e­gy; mar­ket­ing man­age­ment; civ­il and struc­tur­al en­gi­neer­ing; project man­age­ment; con­struc­tion; con­tract ad­min­is­tra­tion; wa­ter and waste-wa­ter en­gi­neer­ing; in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions and ad­vanced com­mer­cial me­di­a­tion; ar­bi­tra­tion; in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty; and pub­lic ser­vice com­mis­sion–po­lice, etc.

It was then use­ful to ex­am­ine their vot­ing per­for­mance on re­cent bills, al­though it is not prac­ti­cal to de­ter­mine any pat­terns over the span of four bills. On the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty Re­peal Bill, sev­en vot­ed against and two ab­stained. On the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion Bill, five vot­ed “for” and four ab­stained. No di­vi­sions were tak­en on the Chil­dren’s Life Fund and the Fi­nance Sup­ple­ment Bill 2025. Their pre­sen­ta­tions were pro­found and com­mend­able.

Gen­er­al­ly, over the past 17 years, from 2008 to 2025, in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors vot­ed for bills tabled by gov­ern­ments, whether UNC or PNM, most of the time when di­vi­sions were tak­en.

So, giv­en their qual­i­fi­ca­tions and per­for­mance, what specif­i­cal­ly is the prob­lem with the Pres­i­dent’s ap­pointees? I will not spec­u­late but sim­ply state facts. Is eth­nic di­ver­si­ty an ele­phant in the room? Re­gard­ing the bla­tant at­tacks on Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira in par­tic­u­lar, he was ap­point­ed by three dif­fer­ent UNC and PNM gov­ern­ment-nom­i­nat­ed pres­i­dents. What is his vot­ing pat­tern?  

Dur­ing the pe­ri­od 2013 to 2015, he vot­ed “yes” to all the UNC gov­ern­ment bills for which a di­vi­sion was tak­en, ex­cept for one. And re­cent­ly, in 2025, he vot­ed “no” to dis­card­ing the TTRA (which he’d vot­ed for in 2021). He ab­stained on the PM’s Pen­sion Bill. No di­vi­sion was tak­en on the oth­er two bills. His pre­sen­ta­tions were thor­ough and ex­em­plary.

So, the is­sue with Sen­a­tor Vieira couldn’t be his per­for­mance on the UNC gov­ern­ment bills. I leave the read­er to pon­der this: In 2021, the UNC Op­po­si­tion called on the Pres­i­dent to re­voke Sen­a­tor Vieira’s ap­point­ment. He had filed a mo­tion to “cen­sure” the UNC sen­a­tors for poor con­duct and abuse of the Sen­ate when the Op­po­si­tion at­tempt­ed to re­move Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes, whom it ac­cused of be­ing an agent of the PNM. 

Her Ex­cel­len­cy Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo reap­point­ed Sen­a­tor Vieira. Maybe there are oth­er rea­sons for the at­tacks on in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, which the UNC stal­wart, Sen­a­tor the Hon Wade Mark, Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate and for­mer speak­er of the House, (and who will act as Pres­i­dent and ap­point tem­po­rary in­de­pen­dents), de­scribed as ef­forts to ‘in­tim­i­date’ or ‘ha­rass’ be­fore de­bates.

All the above are an­tecedents we shouldn’t ig­nore, nor is the re­al­i­ty of Gov­ern­ment’s de­sire to have a suc­cess­ful leg­isla­tive agen­da and, con­se­quent­ly, the votes of in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, who are not eas­i­ly in­flu­enced.

We hear a lot about elec­toral man­dates, which may be ex­pressed as Gov­ern­ment’s au­thor­i­ty to im­ple­ment poli­cies based on com­mit­ments made dur­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion po­lit­i­cal cam­paigns. Un­der our par­lia­men­tary con­ven­tions, re­gard­less of pop­u­lar man­dates, par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tives and sen­a­tors must thor­ough­ly scru­ti­nise spe­cif­ic leg­is­la­tion for con­sti­tu­tion­al sound­ness, to pro­tect fun­da­men­tal hu­man rights, and to en­sure such leg­is­la­tion is rea­son­ably jus­ti­fied.

In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors typ­i­cal­ly sug­gest amend­ments if they have con­cerns with a par­tic­u­lar sec­tion of a bill and may vote for or against it. In do­ing so, they are not vot­ing for or against Gov­ern­ment, nor are they vot­ing with Gov­ern­ment or the op­po­si­tion. They deal with the bill be­fore them.

Im­par­tial­i­ty of Pres­i­dent and in­de­pen­dence of sen­a­tors

Ques­tion­ing the in­de­pen­dence of in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors is noth­ing new, and just re­cent­ly, a view was ex­pressed that they should be called “pres­i­den­tial sen­a­tors” and “take in­struc­tions from the Pres­i­dent”, as they rep­re­sent no one. The ram­i­fi­ca­tions for Gov­ern­ment, the Pres­i­dent, the Op­po­si­tion, and the in­tegri­ty of the Con­sti­tu­tion should be ob­vi­ous with such a sys­tem, set­ting the stage for even more ac­ri­mo­ny, di­vi­sive­ness, po­lit­i­cal mis­chief and dys­func­tion, more so when the Pres­i­dent in­structs in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors to vote against or for gov­ern­ment bills. 

When a gov­ern­ment has a healthy ma­jor­i­ty, hav­ing ex­pe­ri­enced, wise and fear­less in­de­pen­dent-think­ing pro­fes­sion­als is ben­e­fi­cial. So, that mad-bull kite about in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors tak­ing the Pres­i­dent’s in­struc­tions should be zwilled.

Po­lit­i­cal vibes have cir­cu­lat­ed in the Pres­i­dent’s of­fice since back in 1997 when the late pres­i­dent ANR Robin­son stepped in­to the pres­i­den­cy di­rect­ly from the Cab­i­net, un­like the Pres­i­dent, Her Ex­cel­len­cy Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, who had long been out of the po­lit­i­cal fray be­fore she was elect­ed Pres­i­dent. In any event, un­der Sec­tion 3 the framers of the Con­sti­tu­tion did not ex­clude politi­cians from el­i­gi­bil­i­ty for the pres­i­den­cy; they as­sumed that some­one with po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence might hold it. What mat­ters is not whether the per­son once held po­lit­i­cal of­fice, but whether they can dis­charge the pres­i­den­tial du­ties im­par­tial­ly and con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly once elect­ed. The Con­sti­tu­tion sets out clear lim­its and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for the role, and any Pres­i­dent, re­gard­less of back­ground, is ex­pect­ed to act with­in those bounds, re­spect­ing the of­fice and the Con­sti­tu­tion. The Pres­i­dent has demon­strat­ed that with grace. 

Re­cent­ly, crit­i­cisms ques­tion­ing the Pres­i­dent’s im­par­tial­i­ty in ap­point­ing in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors have in­ten­si­fied. As in­di­cat­ed ear­li­er, from their re­cent per­for­mance, they’re not pas­sive vot­ers. They state their case, lis­ten, eval­u­ate new in­for­ma­tion aris­ing from de­bates and de­cide. There’s noth­ing in their per­for­mance to even sug­gest that they act in con­cert or con­spire with any par­ty. 

It is ac­cept­ed that de­bates are of­ten con­tentious, but the fact that in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors were ap­point­ed by a Pres­i­dent who was once an ac­tive politi­cian has no rel­e­vance to the in­de­pen­dent think­ing abil­i­ty and ac­tions of those sen­a­tors. Nei­ther would it be fair to ques­tion the abil­i­ty and sin­cer­i­ty of present gov­ern­ment min­is­ters sole­ly be­cause they were once PNM gov­ern­ment min­is­ters.

I served as an in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor for over sev­en years, hav­ing been ap­point­ed by the UNC/Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment and PNM gov­ern­ment-nom­i­nat­ed pres­i­dents. I say “nom­i­nat­ed”, for it is the Elec­toral Col­lege that elects the Pres­i­dent. I took the blows of be­ing called a PNM, UNC, or COP po­lit­i­cal sen­a­tor at one time or an­oth­er. This col­umn has no com­punc­tion in crit­i­cis­ing the poli­cies and per­for­mance of any gov­ern­ment. 

Since I fre­quent­ly crit­i­cised the last one, it was whis­pered that I am a “clos­et­ed UNC” sup­port­er. Such is life in an is­land where the on­ly things small­er than its in­fin­i­tes­i­mal size are the minds of po­lit­i­cal mis­chief mak­ers. An­oth­er masked so­cial me­dia com­men­ta­tor said I had vot­ed against the UNC “gov­ern­ment” 25 times. Mis­chief. 

Out of 37 bills for which a di­vi­sion had been tak­en, I vot­ed “No” twice out of 17 PNM gov­ern­ment bills and three times “No” out of 20 UNC gov­ern­ment bills.

On ob­ser­va­tion, over the past 18 years, and in my time in the Sen­ate, con­struc­tive di­a­logue, com­mon sense, con­vinc­ing in­for­ma­tion, and per­sua­sion usu­al­ly yield pos­i­tive re­sults with the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors when they have le­git­i­mate con­cerns about the leg­is­la­tion be­fore them, es­pe­cial­ly at the com­mit­tee stage.

To shape a just so­ci­ety, the law and moral val­ues al­ways in­voke deep re­flec­tion. Con­tin­u­ous di­a­logue, re­spect for one an­oth­er re­gard­less of sta­tus, and moral sua­sion will help us to evolve in­to a gen­tler and more har­mo­nious place. In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors are not above crit­i­cism, but they don’t de­serve the tox­ic dust con­stant­ly thrown in their faces sim­ply be­cause of the per­ceived way they vot­ed on leg­is­la­tion.