Dr Win­ford James

Max Al­bert and I con­tin­ue our dis­cus­sions on the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my ques­tion.

In re­cent weeks, our con­ver­sa­tions have fo­cused on the con­sti­tu­tion­al evo­lu­tion of To­ba­go and the in­sti­tu­tions cre­at­ed to give ex­pres­sion to To­ba­go’s dis­tinct iden­ti­ty with­in the Re­pub­lic, and as of­ten hap­pens in se­ri­ous in­quiry, one ques­tion has led to an­oth­er. We have found our­selves con­sid­er­ing a mat­ter that has sur­pris­ing­ly lit­tle na­tion­al at­ten­tion: what T&T thought it was restor­ing when the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) was re-es­tab­lished through Act 37 of 1980.

The pur­pose of the Act was to make pro­vi­sion for the ad­min­is­tra­tion of To­ba­go by de­volv­ing spe­cif­ic pow­ers—for­mu­la­tion of pol­i­cy and im­ple­men­ta­tion of na­tion­al poli­cies from the cen­tral gov­ern­ment. It al­lowed for an elect­ed THA, ap­point­ed Coun­cil­lors, an Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil, and ad­min­is­tra­tive staff.

But the new pow­ers and struc­ture not on­ly moved To­ba­go away from the Coun­ty Coun­cil and gave To­ba­go more ad­min­is­tra­tive abil­i­ty; they were a con­sti­tu­tion­al ac­knowl­edge­ment that To­ba­go pos­sessed a dis­tinct iden­ti­ty, unique de­vel­op­men­tal chal­lenges, and le­git­i­mate as­pi­ra­tions re­quir­ing in­sti­tu­tion­al ex­pres­sion. They were, in ef­fect, a recog­ni­tion that To­ba­go could not be prop­er­ly gov­erned sole­ly through arrange­ments de­signed for the larg­er is­land.

In­deed, if we ex­am­ine To­ba­go’s con­sti­tu­tion­al evo­lu­tion care­ful­ly, the 1980 re-es­tab­lish­ment and the ad­min­is­tra­tive de­vel­op­ments em­bod­ied in Act No 8 of 1988 may be viewed as two com­po­nents of the same con­sti­tu­tion­al project: po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship on the one hand, and the ma­chin­ery for im­ple­men­ta­tion on the oth­er. To­geth­er, they rep­re­sent­ed the grad­ual emer­gence of a dis­tinc­tive politi­co-ad­min­is­tra­tive struc­ture with­in the Re­pub­lic.

Au­thor­i­ty needs ad­min­is­tra­tive teeth if it is not to be mired in in­er­tia. And ad­min­is­tra­tion with­out po­lit­i­cal di­rec­tion lacks de­mo­c­ra­t­ic le­git­i­ma­cy. Viewed through this lens, the restora­tion of the As­sem­bly and the ad­min­is­tra­tive re­forms that fol­lowed were part of a larg­er con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­jec­tion and evo­lu­tion whose im­pli­ca­tions may not have been ful­ly ab­sorbed by the na­tion­al con­scious­ness.

The laws changed. The in­sti­tu­tions changed. The con­sti­tu­tion­al land­scape changed. But did the psy­chol­o­gy of the Re­pub­lic change ac­cord­ing­ly?

If Trinidad gen­uine­ly re­gard­ed the re­stored As­sem­bly as an au­then­tic in­stru­ment of gov­er­nance with­in its sphere of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, one would ex­pect a cor­re­spond­ing ad­just­ment in the way the in­sti­tu­tion and its of­fice­hold­ers were viewed. One would ex­pect sta­tus to re­flect re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. One would ex­pect pro­to­col to re­flect con­sti­tu­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance. One would ex­pect re­mu­ner­a­tion to re­flect ex­ec­u­tive au­thor­i­ty. One would ex­pect recog­ni­tion to evolve along­side con­sti­tu­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

Yet To­ba­go’s ex­pe­ri­ence of­ten sug­gests a more un­com­fort­able re­al­i­ty.

The As­sem­bly ex­ists, but de­bates over its au­thor­i­ty have per­sist­ed. Ad­min­is­tra­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ties have ex­pand­ed, yet ques­tions of con­trol re­main un­re­solved. Fi­nan­cial au­thor­i­ty re­mains con­test­ed. Plan­ning au­thor­i­ty re­mains dis­put­ed. And au­ton­o­my it­self has be­come the sub­ject of re­cur­ring na­tion­al de­bate.

These con­tro­ver­sies all point to­ward a deep­er un­re­solved ques­tion. What place was To­ba­go in­tend­ed to oc­cu­py with­in the con­sti­tu­tion­al imag­i­na­tion of the Re­pub­lic? Was the As­sem­bly viewed as a gen­uine part­ner in­sti­tu­tion with­in the na­tion­al frame­work? Or was it re­gard­ed pri­mar­i­ly as an ad­min­is­tra­tive ac­com­mo­da­tion de­signed to ad­dress To­ba­go’s con­cerns with­out fun­da­men­tal­ly al­ter­ing es­tab­lished pat­terns of au­thor­i­ty?

The dis­tinc­tion is im­por­tant, for in­sti­tu­tions are shaped not on­ly by leg­is­la­tion but al­so by per­cep­tion. How a na­tion views an in­sti­tu­tion of­ten de­ter­mines how it treats that in­sti­tu­tion.

These re­flec­tions have been sharp­ened by our ex­am­i­na­tion of the fi­nan­cial cir­cum­stances of for­mer, pi­o­neer­ing As­sem­bly mem­bers, par­tic­u­lar­ly cir­cum­stances re­lat­ing to re­mu­ner­a­tion, pen­sions, and re­tire­ment ben­e­fits. As we ex­plored them, how­ev­er, a larg­er ques­tion be­gan to emerge. Salary is more than com­pen­sa­tion. It is recog­ni­tion. It is so­ci­ety’s way of sig­nalling the im­por­tance at­tached to an of­fice and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties car­ried by its hold­er.

The same may be said of pro­to­col. Many cit­i­zens re­gard pro­to­col as lit­tle more than cer­e­mo­ny. In re­al­i­ty, pro­to­col is one of the clear­est ex­pres­sions of con­sti­tu­tion­al psy­chol­o­gy.

Pro­to­col lists re­veal how a State un­der­stands au­thor­i­ty, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and sta­tus. They in­di­cate where in­sti­tu­tions and of­fice­hold­ers are sit­u­at­ed with­in the na­tion­al or­der. They com­mu­ni­cate how the Re­pub­lic val­ues the of­fices through which pub­lic pow­er is ex­er­cised.

This rais­es an im­por­tant ques­tion. Where should the Chief Sec­re­tary stand with­in the pro­to­col struc­ture of T&T? Where should Sec­re­taries of the As­sem­bly stand?

These ques­tions are not mat­ters of van­i­ty. They are mat­ters of con­sti­tu­tion­al mean­ing. The is­sue is not whether the Chief Sec­re­tary is iden­ti­cal to the Prime Min­is­ter. Nor is it whether Sec­re­taries of the As­sem­bly are iden­ti­cal to Min­is­ters of Gov­ern­ment.

The is­sue is whether they oc­cu­py anal­o­gous po­si­tions with­in their re­spec­tive spheres of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and whether that re­al­i­ty de­serves greater recog­ni­tion than has tra­di­tion­al­ly been ac­cord­ed.

A ma­ture Re­pub­lic should not fear that dis­cus­sion. In­deed, one may rea­son­ably ar­gue that the con­sti­tu­tion­al evo­lu­tion of To­ba­go re­quires a cor­re­spond­ing evo­lu­tion in pro­to­col, sta­tus, and re­mu­ner­a­tion. Such an evo­lu­tion would not di­min­ish na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions. Rather, it would strength­en the Union by align­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al per­cep­tion with con­sti­tu­tion­al re­al­i­ty. If the As­sem­bly is to be re­gard­ed as a gen­uine in­stru­ment of gov­er­nance and not mere­ly an ad­min­is­tra­tive con­ve­nience, then those en­trust­ed with its lead­er­ship must be ac­cord­ed a lev­el of recog­ni­tion con­sis­tent with the sig­nif­i­cance of the of­fices they hold.

This is not a mat­ter of priv­i­lege. It is a mat­ter of con­sti­tu­tion­al co­her­ence. Per­haps it is the recog­ni­tion that the po­lit­i­cal and ad­min­is­tra­tive in­sti­tu­tions cre­at­ed for To­ba­go over the last four decades de­serve a place with­in the na­tion­al or­der that re­flects their true con­sti­tu­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance. That con­ver­sa­tion is long over­due.

Dr Win­ford James is a re­tired UWI lec­tur­er who has been analysing is­sues in ed­u­ca­tion, lan­guage, de­vel­op­ment and pol­i­tics in T&T and the wider Caribbean on ra­dio and TV since the 1970s. He has al­so writ­ten thou­sands of columns for all ma­jor news­pa­pers in the coun­try.