Cherisse Moe

The In­do-Trin­ba­go Equal­i­ty Coun­cil (ITEC) has giv­en Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards 28 days to in­di­cate when a new In­tegri­ty com­mis­sion will be ap­point­ed. Chair­man of the coun­cil, De­vant Ma­haraj, said if the Pres­i­dent fails to ap­point the com­mis­sion, his coun­cil is pre­pared to file a con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion and/or a ju­di­cial re­view ap­pli­ca­tion, seek­ing an or­der against the Cab­i­net to "com­pel it to ad­vise the Pres­i­dent to make the nec­es­sary ap­point­ments."

On Feb­ru­ary 5, all four mem­bers of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion sub­mit­ted their res­ig­na­tions to Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards. Those re­sign­ing were John Mar­tin, chair­man, Jus­tice Mon­i­ca Barnes, deputy chair­man, Pe­ter Clarke and Vin­dar Dean-Ma­haraj. The fifth com­mis­sion­er, Bri­an Nichol­son, died last year and was nev­er re­placed.

This was in re­sponse to the com­mis­sion's de­feat in the High Court by an ac­tion brought against for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, Dr Kei­th Row­ley. It took the Pres­i­dent two months to ap­point a new com­mis­sion, but with­in days of their ap­point­ment all five mem­bers re­signed for var­i­ous rea­sons.

Dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj said it was un­ac­cept­able for the coun­try to be op­er­at­ing with­out a func­tion­ing In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, as it com­pro­mis­es the op­er­a­tion of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act, and pro­vides fer­tile ground for "po­lit­i­cal cor­rup­tion."

"We plan to file a con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion against the Cab­i­net to ad­vise the Pres­i­dent of the ur­gency of ap­point­ing a Com­mis­sion," he said. "There has been no In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion for over half a year now, al­low­ing se­ri­ous mat­ters un­der con­sid­er­a­tion to be left un­at­tend­ed." Ma­haraj said last month, his coun­cil pre­sent­ed Richards with a let­ter rec­om­mend­ing some 23 po­ten­tial can­di­dates who could be used to form a "new and ro­bust" In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion.

"The con­sti­tu­tion does not en­vis­age a sit­u­a­tion where there is no func­tion­ing In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion," he said. "Sec­tion 138 of the Con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides that there shall be an In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. Sec­tion 4 (4) of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act man­dates the pres­i­dent to ap­point the mem­bers of the Com­mis­sion af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter and Leader of the Op­po­si­tion."

Ma­haraj said it was in the Pres­i­dent's best in­ter­est to let good sense pre­vail and move with haste to ap­point a new Com­mis­sion, as the na­tion was be­ing neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed by the "un­rea­son­able de­lay." "Peo­ple are be­ing af­fect­ed in a very se­ri­ous man­ner," he said. "The lack of an In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion can lead to Gov­ern­ment un­ac­count­abil­i­ty and cor­rup­tion...This un­der­mines this de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tion."