Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie yes­ter­day praised the or­gan­is­ers of a pro­cure­ment work­shop for work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to fa­cil­i­tate the spread of knowl­edge on an im­por­tant de­vel­op­ment in T&T.

Archie de­liv­ered open­ing re­marks at the event, called the 'Chal­lenge Pro­ceed­ings Lab: In­to the mind of the OPR' (Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion) held yes­ter­day at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain.

The Chief Jus­tice said he was par­tic­u­lar­ly heart­ened to see such a strong con­ver­gence of stake­hold­ers shar­ing the same learn­ing space.

"The com­bined ex­pe­ri­ence in this room to­day from le­gal prac­ti­tion­ers, pro­cure­ment of­fi­cers, com­pli­ance ex­perts, and pol­i­cy lead­ers rep­re­sents a pow­er­ful col­lec­tive re­source and this speaks to a ma­tur­ing gov­er­nance en­vi­ron­ment, one in which we are dis­man­tling si­los and hope­ful­ly, mov­ing to­wards a more in­te­grat­ed and sys­tems think­ing ap­proach."

Archie said that his­tor­i­cal­ly, pro­cure­ment dis­putes were pri­mar­i­ly ad­dressed through ju­di­cial re­view or civ­il lit­i­ga­tion.

Not­ing that with the full procla­ma­tion of the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act 2015 in April 2023, ad­ju­dica­tive pro­ce­dures have been shift­ed to the OPR, he said the ju­di­cia­ry finds it­self in a new land­scape.

"While our role will still be ad­ju­dica­tive, our fo­cus will be prob­lem-solv­ing with the un­der­stand­ing that we are a cru­cial part of the coun­try's eco­nom­ic in­fra­struc­ture," said T&T's top judge.

He said the lab plays bold and nec­es­sary step to­ward strength­en­ing the ad­ju­dica­tive and qua­si-ad­ju­dica­tive com­po­nents of the pro­cure­ment sys­tem.

"We must al­so be mind­ful while nav­i­gat­ing this new ter­rain that in­tegri­ty in pub­lic pro­cure­ment should not be at­tained by sac­ri­fic­ing the ease and ef­fi­cien­cy of do­ing busi­ness. That is crit­i­cal for our de­vel­op­ment and at­trac­tive­ness for in­vest­ment," said Archie.

He added that that means the ju­di­cia­ry must re­train and re­tool to un­der­stand­ing the ra­tio­nale be­hind sec­tor-spe­cif­ic leg­is­la­tions.

"We don't judge in a vac­cu­um and de­mand blind ad­her­ence. We have to ask our­selves what it is for. This calls for more di­a­logue," the Chief Jus­tice said.

Point­ing out that the ju­di­cia­ry must not be mere ref­er­ee but strate­gic part­ner in dri­ving best prac­tices in pro­cure­ment, Archie said, "The ju­rispru­dence emerg­ing from the func­tion­ing of the OPR and even­tu­al­ly from our courts will shape how fair­ness is de­fined and im­ple­ment­ed across all lev­els of the pub­lic sec­tor."

The lab was a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Com­pli­ance Plus and at­tor­neys at law Lex Caribbean with the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T and the T&T Con­trac­tors As­so­ca­tion as part­ner­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions.