Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jagdeo Singh be­lieves it might be time for Par­lia­ment to de­vel­op its own code of con­duct.

Ad­dress­ing the Post-Elec­tion Sem­i­nar at the Par­lia­men­tary Com­plex in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Singh said par­lia­men­tary ac­count­abil­i­ty is the cor­ner­stone of pub­lic trust, and a struc­tured and ex­ten­sive code of ethics for both Hous­es may be re­quired.

He ex­plained that lawyers present would un­der­stand the im­por­tance of clear­ly out­lined stan­dards, re­fer­ring to the Ban­ga­lore Prin­ci­ples of Ju­di­cial Con­duct, which es­tab­lish glob­al bench­marks for judges.

Fi­nalised in 2002, the Ban­ga­lore Prin­ci­ples de­fine six core val­ues to guide the ju­di­cia­ry—in­de­pen­dence, im­par­tial­i­ty, in­tegri­ty, pro­pri­ety, equal­i­ty, com­pe­tence and dili­gence. These prin­ci­ples, de­signed to up­hold pub­lic con­fi­dence in the jus­tice sys­tem, have been wide­ly adopt­ed and adapt­ed to re­in­force ac­count­abil­i­ty and train­ing for judges world­wide.

“Per­haps it may be time for us to set out our own prin­ci­ples as leg­is­la­tors which bear some re­sem­blance to those enun­ci­at­ed in Ban­ga­lore for Ju­di­cial Con­duct. Oth­er fac­tors, such as the de­c­la­ra­tion of in­ter­ests, will be em­pha­sised along with strate­gies for pre­vent­ing con­flicts of in­ter­est that could present what the lawyers among us will know to be the per­cep­tion of the well-in­formed and fair-mind­ed ob­serv­er re­gard­ing whether bias or oth­er is­sues ap­ply to a Par­lia­men­tar­i­an,” Singh said.

He un­der­lined that in­clu­sive rep­re­sen­ta­tion is not on­ly a moral re­spon­si­bil­i­ty but al­so a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ne­ces­si­ty, say­ing that a Par­lia­ment that re­flects the di­verse make­up of so­ci­ety—in­clud­ing women, youth, eth­nic mi­nori­ties, and mar­gin­alised groups—is bet­ter pre­pared to cre­ate laws that are le­git­i­mate, em­pa­thet­ic, and for­ward-think­ing.

The sem­i­nar aimed to sup­port new­ly elect­ed par­lia­men­tar­i­ans with nine key ses­sions: Op­por­tu­ni­ties and Chal­lenges; Be­hav­iours, Ethics, and Stan­dards; Pow­ers, Priv­i­leges, and Pro­ce­dures; Leg­isla­tive Process; Ques­tions and Mo­tions; In­clu­siv­i­ty and Par­tic­i­pa­tion; Mem­ber-Clerk Re­la­tions; Par­lia­men­tary Diplo­ma­cy; and Net­work­ing.

Singh stressed the im­por­tance of ex­am­in­ing how min­is­ters, MPs, sen­a­tors, and par­lia­men­tary sec­re­taries con­tribute to the leg­isla­tive process. He not­ed the ne­ces­si­ty of achiev­ing a del­i­cate bal­ance be­tween par­ty loy­al­ty, per­son­al con­science, and the press­ing in­ter­ests of con­stituents. This, he ex­plained, is of­ten where the true test of states­man­ship oc­curs and can be a rocky and chal­leng­ing jour­ney for par­lia­men­tar­i­ans.

As he an­tic­i­pat­ed the learn­ing ses­sions, he urged mem­bers to use them to cre­ate a new frame­work that would trans­late their par­lia­men­tary man­date in­to mean­ing­ful ac­tion. How­ev­er, his mes­sage in­clud­ed a warn­ing.

“There is no ju­ry that you can stand in any court or that you can ad­dress which would be harsh­er than that of the elec­torate col­lec­tive­ly as a ju­ry. Some­times, that elec­torate is an un­for­giv­ing ju­ry and we must ac­cept that. Their trust is not a giv­en, it is earned through vig­i­lance, ac­count­abil­i­ty and an un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to at­tend to the busi­ness of the peo­ple.”

The sem­i­nar is be­ing held in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Com­mon­wealth Par­lia­men­tary As­so­ci­a­tion (CPA) and Par­lAmer­i­c­as. T&T’s Par­lia­ment is one of 180 in the CPA and one of Par­lAmer­i­c­as’ 35 mem­ber states.

De­liv­er­ing re­marks, CPA Pro­grammes Man­ag­er Clive Bark­er said the short pro­gramme pro­vides the ba­sis for on­go­ing learn­ing and de­vel­op­ment for the Par­lia­ment.

For ex­pe­ri­enced mem­bers, he asked them to use it as a re­fresh­er and an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­vise their un­der­stand­ing of the most up­dat­ed ap­proach­es and prac­tices.

One key point high­light­ed ahead of the pro­gramme was that the gov­ern­ment of to­day can eas­i­ly be­come the Op­po­si­tion of to­mor­row.

“So gov­ern­ment mem­bers should un­der­stand what they can do to en­sure that the Par­lia­ment is func­tion­ing at its best re­gard­less of whether you are a min­is­ter, sen­a­tor or a back­bench Op­po­si­tion mem­ber. You must re­mem­ber that you are a par­lia­men­tar­i­an first and fore­most. Re­mem­ber at all times, who you work for: the peo­ple of Trinidad & To­ba­go,” Bark­er said.

He told mem­bers to be goal-ori­ent­ed and know that the peo­ple who work in Par­lia­ment are worth their weight in gold.