Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day are a brief respite from the many chal­lenges fac­ing T&T. On Ash Wednes­day morn­ing, the coun­try will re­turn to work, but the im­pact of the Prime Min­is­ter’s press con­fer­ence on Tues­day last week will still be re­ver­ber­at­ing.

The Gov­ern­ment per­sis­tent­ly fails to take a sys­temic ap­proach and holis­ti­cal­ly ad­dress key is­sues in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. Gov­ern­ments are elect­ed to solve prob­lems. Cit­i­zens un­der­stand that an ad­min­is­tra­tion is made of mor­tals who will make mis­takes. They un­der­stand that prob­lems can­not be solved si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly or by wav­ing a mag­ic wand. But they ex­pect so­lu­tions to be de­vised in a cal­i­brat­ed way, in grad­u­at­ed steps which build on the progress achieved by each pre­ced­ing step.

Po­lit­i­cal games­man­ship, blame avoid­ance and blame shift­ing are the work­ing tools of any suc­cess­ful politi­cian, and the Prime Min­is­ter is a suc­cess­ful politi­cian. How­ev­er, get­ting the job done al­so re­quires fo­cus­ing on key el­e­ments of the prob­lem, plan­ning mea­sures to ad­dress them, and per­se­ver­ance in ex­e­cut­ing the so­lu­tions.

He de­ferred a full press con­fer­ence on his re­turn from over­seas trav­el and promised to speak last Tues­day. One sup­posed that he would have used that time to de­vel­op a com­pre­hen­sive re­port on mat­ters he con­sid­ered rel­e­vant. This coun­try has long been the re­cip­i­ent of for­eign ad­vice and as­sis­tance in sev­er­al dif­fer­ent ways. The ev­i­dence sug­gests that the ad­vice and as­sis­tance have not been trans­lat­ed in­to self-sus­tain­ing per­for­mance im­prove­ment.

There are re­sourc­ing is­sues across sev­er­al dif­fer­ent ar­eas of the jus­tice sys­tem; the Ju­di­cia­ry, the DPP’s Of­fice, Foren­sics and DNA test­ing, bal­lis­tics, the TTPS and the Pris­ons Ser­vice. New build­ings will no doubt be built which will need skilled hu­man re­sources and rig­or­ous sys­tems. Giv­en the preva­lence of vi­o­lent crime and mur­der, the coun­try is seek­ing re­as­sur­ance which can­not come from mere­ly in­creas­ing the num­ber of po­lice re­cruits, or task­ing the De­fence Force with as­sist­ing the po­lice.

Per­haps mech­a­nisms are be­ing de­vel­oped to achieve mean­ing­ful change in the jus­tice sys­tem. The press con­fer­ence did not sup­port that op­ti­mism. In­stead, we were treat­ed to more de­flec­tion and mis­di­rec­tion. Per­haps it was heart­en­ing to know that there was a 2017 Man­pow­er Com­mis­sion re­port on the TTPS and that the Cab­i­net is guid­ed by its con­tent.

The coun­try need­ed a man­age­ment up­date. How many of the com­mis­sion’s rec­om­men­da­tions were con­sid­ered crit­i­cal and how many had been im­ple­ment­ed? What progress has been made since 2017 and what more needs to be done? What were the next im­por­tant steps? How would the im­ple­men­ta­tion of these rec­om­men­da­tions im­prove per­for­mance and in what time frame? How are the ob­jec­tives and im­prove­ments aligned with the de­vel­op­ments tak­ing place in oth­er branch­es of the jus­tice sys­tem?

In­stead, the me­dia, the Op­po­si­tion, the late Patrick Man­ning and Bas­deo Pan­day for the 2006 changes in the CoP’s elec­tion process were all un­der at­tack. Miss­ing was mean­ing­ful ac­count­abil­i­ty and ac­cep­tance of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. An anx­ious pub­lic was told that the Cab­i­net should not be held re­spon­si­ble where it did not have the au­thor­i­ty.

If the buck does not stop with the Prime Min­is­ter and his Cab­i­net, who is re­spon­si­ble? These are se­ri­ous is­sues which re­quire lead­er­ship, not a rant. Per­haps Car­ni­val’s Mid­night Rob­ber came ear­ly and stole lead­er­ship.