Last week’s ar­ti­cle, “Too Many Cab­i­net Notes?” orig­i­nat­ed with a sug­ges­tion from a for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter.

While there were no dis­sent­ing voic­es, it gen­er­at­ed more com­ments than oth­er ar­ti­cles in the se­ries.

An­oth­er cab­i­net min­is­ter, sev­er­al ad­min­is­tra­tions re­moved, raised some im­por­tant is­sues re­gard­ing the Cab­i­net’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for op­er­a­tional fail­ures. He was voic­ing his frus­tra­tion that the Cab­i­net is blamed for every fail­ure in the body politic.

Where does Cab­i­net re­spon­si­bil­i­ty end? Is the Cab­i­net re­spon­si­ble for mat­ters oth­er than pol­i­cy? One of the most press­ing items on the na­tion­al agen­da is crime. Vi­o­lent crime mat­ters to every cit­i­zen and can hap­pen any­where, any­time, as Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh found out last week. What is the Cab­i­net’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty re­gard­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice?

This is im­por­tant since the pub­lic blames the Gov­ern­ment for the TTPS’s weak per­for­mance in op­er­a­tional mat­ters such as poor crime de­tec­tion rates, er­rant po­lice of­fi­cers, the num­ber and fre­quen­cy of derelict po­lice ve­hi­cles, the con­di­tion of po­lice sta­tions, po­lice re­sponse, mur­der rate, firearms, etc.

It is per­haps best to es­tab­lish the le­gal frame­work that gov­erns the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the role of law en­force­ment and the du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the Cab­i­net.

The Con­sti­tu­tion is built on the doc­trine of sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers to safe­guard the fun­da­men­tal rights and free­doms con­tained in Chap­ter 1.

The Con­sti­tu­tion Amend­ment Act 2006 S7 gives the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice “com­plete pow­er to man­age the po­lice ser­vice and is re­quired to en­sure that the hu­man fi­nan­cial and ma­te­r­i­al re­sources avail­able to the ser­vice are used in an ef­fi­cient and ef­fec­tive man­ner.”

There­fore, nei­ther the Cab­i­net nor a min­is­ter can “or­der” the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, his deputies, or sub­or­di­nates to per­form a spe­cif­ic task. S123 of the Con­sti­tu­tion gives the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) the pow­er to ap­point the com­mis­sion­er.

The pro­ce­dur­al law gov­ern­ing the se­lec­tion of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and deputy is con­tained in or­ders made un­der the hand of the Pres­i­dent and pub­lished in Le­gal No­tices (LN) 101 and 102 of 2009. LN 101 re­lates to the se­lec­tion cri­te­ria, and LN 102 es­tab­lish­es the process to ap­point the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.

The PSC must first no­ti­fy the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives through the pres­i­dent and can on­ly ap­point the COP af­ter the House ap­proves the nom­i­nee. The bot­tom line is that the Gov­ern­ment of the day, through its ma­jor­i­ty, de­ter­mines whether or not a par­tic­u­lar can­di­date will get the job as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. Pre­vi­ous­ly, it was the Prime Min­is­ter who had the ve­to pow­er over the ap­point­ment.

The Cab­i­net’s role then is on­ly to pro­pose the per­son to be ap­point­ed and for its mem­bers to vote in Par­lia­ment on the nom­i­na­tion. Sim­i­lar pro­vi­sions (not iden­ti­cal) ex­ist for the ap­point­ment of serv­ing of­fi­cers in oth­er branch­es of gov­ern­ment, such as the ju­di­cia­ry, the pub­lic ser­vice, and the teach­ing ser­vice. The con­struc­tion is sim­i­lar and is meant to lim­it the di­rect pow­er of the Cab­i­net. The Cab­i­net has no pow­er over the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al, as that of­fice “… shall not be sub­ject to the di­rec­tion and con­trol of any oth­er per­son or au­thor­i­ty” S116 (6). S75 of the Con­sti­tu­tion is clear on the is­sue of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

It says “… There shall be a Cab­i­net for Trinidad and To­ba­go which shall have gen­er­al di­rec­tion and con­trol of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go and shall be col­lec­tive­ly re­spon­si­ble there­for to Par­lia­ment.” The phrase “gen­er­al di­rec­tion and con­trol” is all-en­com­pass­ing, giv­ing the Cab­i­net wide re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. The term “gen­er­al” gives lat­i­tude in what it should con­sid­er, while con­trol in­di­cates that it is meant to have pow­er over mat­ters sub­ject to the law.

No con­sti­tu­tion­al doc­u­ment can an­tic­i­pate every event or every pos­si­bil­i­ty and will use lan­guage that can­not be as spe­cif­ic as a job de­scrip­tion. Nor can it give key per­for­mance in­di­ca­tors.

Per­haps the con­sti­tu­tion­al ex­perts will dif­fer, but S 75’s phras­ing sug­gests the com­mon law doc­trine of “in­her­ent ju­ris­dic­tion.” That means the Cab­i­net has the right to ad­dress any mat­ter af­fect­ing the gov­er­nance of the coun­try un­less there is a spe­cif­ic law that pre­vents it from so do­ing.

Cab­i­net is re­spon­si­ble to Par­lia­ment and must ac­count for and jus­ti­fy its ac­tions in Par­lia­ment. Every po­lit­i­cal man­i­festo enu­mer­ates mat­ters that a po­lit­i­cal par­ty con­sid­ers a pri­or­i­ty to be ad­dressed when in of­fice. These are per­for­mance promis­es by which it ex­pects to be judged un­bound­ed by any in­her­ent con­sti­tu­tion­al re­straints.

When in of­fice, the Cab­i­net con­trols the State’s re­sources. It has the pow­er to tax and spend through the Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Bill (the bud­get), con­trols the leg­isla­tive agen­da, and ap­proves the se­lec­tion of the can­di­date for the com­mis­sion­er’s job. The pub­lic con­cern is whether the Cab­i­net is do­ing every­thing it can to ful­fil its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and man­i­festo pledges to re­duce crime.

Law and or­der are the bedrock of good gov­er­nance and so­cial sta­bil­i­ty. The pub­lic wants pos­i­tive out­comes, not ex­cus­es, and ex­pects its elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives to use every le­git­i­mate means to achieve re­sults.

The pub­lic can­not con­trol the com­mis­sion­er, but it votes for the next gov­ern­ment. The con­stant rep­e­ti­tion of con­sti­tu­tion­al lim­i­ta­tions by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and Cab­i­net is not mere­ly a pub­lic re­la­tions gap. It is a sink­hole of pub­lic trust. 

Mar­i­ano Browne is the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of the UWI Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness.