Tony Rakhal-Fras­er

As I ar­gued last week, at the core of the chal­lenges of gov­er­nance in Trinidad and To­ba­go is the fail­ure to trans­form the out­stand­ing prob­lems posed by the Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion. As in­di­cat­ed be­low, the short­com­ings, the bias, and the lack of pen­e­tra­tion in­to re­solv­ing ma­jor prob­lems of gov­er­nance are very well-known and have been cit­ed and dis­cussed by the two ma­jor par­ties for a po­lit­i­cal life­time.

Why then have the PNM and the UNC, and one com­posed of el­e­ments of both, the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion, de­lib­er­ate­ly re­fused to heed the need for the trans­for­ma­tion re­quired? The an­swer is sim­ple, when in of­fice, they are com­fort­able with all the con­sti­tu­tion­al de­fects and ir­rel­e­van­cies, as they utilise them for the pur­pos­es of their par­ties, po­lit­i­cal in­vestors and their trib­al sup­port bases.

Here are a few sub­stan­ti­at­ing el­e­ments of the above state­ment. The PNM’s Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams, in seek­ing to turn T&T in­to a Re­pub­lic, un­tied from the apron strings of the Moth­er Coun­try, es­tab­lished a Com­mis­sion head­ed by re­tired chief jus­tice, Sir Hugh Wood­ing and sev­er­al oth­er sig­nif­i­cant le­gal and po­lit­i­cal minds.

The re­port pre­sent­ed, PM Williams said, the rec­om­men­da­tions were aimed at break­ing up the PNM ma­jori­ties. He got a le­gal draughts­man, and to­geth­er they craft­ed the Re­pub­lic Con­sti­tu­tion of Williams’ choice.

In 1986, then prime min­is­ter ANR Robin­son (NAR) got in­to an ar­gu­ment with then Pres­i­dent El­lis Clarke over his ap­point­ment of James Al­va Bain to the Pub­lic and Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sions. Deeply put out by Pres­i­dent Clarke’s use of the con­sti­tu­tion to ap­point Bain, and his re­fusal to take heed of the PM’s an­noy­ance, PM Robin­son ap­point­ed Sir Isaac Hy­atali to head a com­mis­sion to re­vise the con­sti­tu­tion, prob­a­bly to re­duce the pow­er of the Pres­i­dent.

The re­port was paid lit­tle at­ten­tion by the in­cum­bent NAR and the in­com­ing PNM gov­ern­ment of Patrick Man­ning. The lat­ter ap­point­ed his own com­mis­sion in 2009; the fate re­mained the same.

The PP/UNC, led by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, es­tab­lished one chaired by Prakash Ra­mad­har; it re­port­ed in 2013; the re­port re­mained on the shelves. PM Dr Kei­th Row­ley did a kind of last-minute turn around and ap­point­ed a Na­tion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on Con­sti­tu­tion Re­form; the non-ac­tion of the pre­de­ces­sor re­ports con­tin­ued.

Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day did not en­gage a com­mis­sion in his time in of­fice, claim­ing that whole­sale con­sti­tu­tion re­form was not re­quired, on­ly a few changes here and there. But in keep­ing with his own phi­los­o­phy that “pol­i­tics has a moral­i­ty of its own,” when he was no longer po­lit­i­cal­ly vi­able, Pan­day be­came the High Priest for con­sti­tu­tion re­form.

“She is a fine and kind woman,” Pan­day said when Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo was elect­ed Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic, but the “Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent was use­less,” and she “would not be able to do any­thing un­der the ex­ist­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al con­fig­u­ra­tion.”

The one prime min­is­ter who did not both­er the coun­try with talk of con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form was George Cham­bers; maybe, what­ev­er else was said about him, he was not “ah set up man”.

The re­al­i­ty of our con­di­tion, there­fore, ab­solute­ly clear from the above ex­am­ples of what has tran­spired along the way, is that the ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties, the PNM and the UNC, the NAR and the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship, aca­d­e­mics, con­sti­tu­tion­al ex­perts, news­pa­per colum­nists, and peo­ple-based in­sti­tu­tions and in­di­vid­u­als, have all iden­ti­fied the need for con­sti­tu­tion re­form.

Why? Here are a few es­tab­lished rea­sons that have been ar­tic­u­lat­ed over the decades: the pow­er to have elect­ed the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic, the Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate, and ef­fec­tive­ly the Chief Jus­tice all re­side with the gov­ern­ment in of­fice. So too, the fi­nal de­ci­sion on who gets na­tion­al awards, and on the hand­ing out of Se­nior Coun­sel sta­tus, all re­side with the gov­ern­ment. The re­sult has been that a cou­ple of prime min­is­ters and a few at­tor­neys gen­er­al have gift­ed them­selves with the Se­nior Coun­sel ti­tle; abil­i­ty and per­for­mance are not cri­te­ria used.

Bas­deo Pan­day stands out amongst the at­tor­ney-prime min­is­ters who have not hand­ed them­selves “silk”. “I did not de­serve it,” said Pan­day, his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer ab­sorbed his time.

Then there is the re­fusal by suc­ceed­ing gov­ern­ments to es­tab­lish cam­paign fi­nance reg­u­la­tions to cur­tail pref­er­ences giv­en to busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions and oth­er in­ter­est­ed par­ties in the de­ci­sion-mak­ing of a gov­ern­ment in of­fice. In­cum­bent Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar has gone on record as re­peat­ing her claim that the PNM is fund­ed by drug deal­ers; the PNM has re­spond­ed in kind, claim­ing that the gov­ern­ment is serv­ing its in­vestors.

There have al­so been stud­ied con­cerns about the elec­toral sys­tem, which has re­port­ed­ly put mi­nor­i­ty gov­ern­ments in of­fice, and the need for a new form of Re­pub­li­can­ism.

The con­sti­tu­tion re­form re­ports cit­ed above abound with sug­ges­tions for changes to the Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion; the par­ty gov­ern­ments are trapped by the oblig­a­tions to those who have fund­ed cam­paigns and to their trib­al broth­ers and sis­ters.

Such navel string con­nec­tions do not al­low for con­sid­er­a­tion and de­vo­tion to the wider na­tion­al in­ter­ests of the col­lec­tive pop­u­la­tion.

Tony Rakhal-Fras­er – free­lance jour­nal­ist, for­mer re­porter/cur­rent af­fairs pro­gramme host, and News Di­rec­tor at TTT; pro­gramme pro­duc­er/cur­rent af­fairs di­rec­tor at Ra­dio Trinidad; cor­re­spon­dent for the BBC Caribbean Ser­vice and the As­so­ci­at­ed Press; grad­u­ate of UWI, CARI­MAC, Mona, and St Au­gus­tine – In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions.