Carnival, crime and policing having successively filled the
screen of national attention so far in 2013, there came last
weekend the long-awaited bid for precedence of constitution
reform. This truly all-surpassing concern finally took centre
stage with the launch of consultations toward a new constitutional architecture
for Trinidad and Tobago.
This forward step had been long in coming. It is nearly three years
since the now-ruling People’s Partnership had undertaken in its manifesto
“as a matter of urgency… to engage the population in consultations
for constitutional reform.” The manifesto pledged to “observe
the bedrock principle that the Constitution should emerge out of the
collective aspirations, will and judgment of the people of Trinidad and
Tobago.”
Governmental leadership for this project of channelling the emergent
popular will fell to coalition partner, the Congress of the People
(COP). Legal Affairs Minister and COP leader Prakash Ramadhar assumed
the role of point man for the renewal, or at least the revisiting,
of the Constitution, requirement for which has appeared to enjoy the
status of all-round political consensus.
By Saturday’s launch of the National Consultation on Constitutional
Reform, Chief Justice Ivor Archie confirmed that the aspirations for
new arrangements extend beyond the political milieu. The Chief Justice
bluntly observed that “aspects of the existing (Constitution) are not
working satisfactorily.” He called for a “complete rewrite of the social
contract that is to govern the way we and our institutions function.”
It is on so sweeping a mandate that T&T is now called upon to deliver,
in the first instance, through participation in the consultation
scheduled to run till March 27. For one conspicuous particular, CJ
Archie even suggested a revision of the watchwords, emblazoned
since 1962 by Eric Williams—Discipline, Production and Tolerance. As
former prime minister Basdeo Panday had earlier done, the Chief Justice
queried the adequacy for today’s need of a notion as relatively passive
as “tolerance”.
The myriad topics that headline rethinking of the T&T Constitution
cover more than that of balancing respect for minorities against
the legitimately expressed will of the majority. They include guarding
against executive overreach; securing press freedom and information
rights; integrity and state procurement; redefining and enhancing local
government; the option of constituents’ recalling of MPs who perform
disappointingly; transparency in political funding; fixed dates for national
and local elections; and the updating of election-campaign regulation.
All of the above seem certain to arise in the constitutional reconsideration
now underway. Certainly, too, those issues cannot be left
for disputation and resolution to the politicians and their parties, and
the“chattering classes” now predominating online. In short, Trinidadians
and Tobagonians have a duty to take active part in the current consultations,
doing so in the most massive show of interest possible in our
own and our country’s future.