If Prime Minister Patrick Manning didn’t know it before last Wednesday, he should now realise that his Draft Constitution has little or no chance of being accepted in its present form. In opening the new law term, Chief Justice Ivor Archie minced few words in trashing the judiciary-related clauses of the Draft Constitution, saying they would undermine judicial independence and, by extension, the rights of citizens.

Other commentators have over the past months made equally trenchant and valid criticisms of the document, but the remarks of Justice Archie, by virtue of both his high office and his keen legal mind, will surely have a major impact on the Prime Minister’s attempts to sell his Draft.

Public reaction to the Chief Justice’s comments has been overwhelmingly positive, and the Prime Minister and his various mouthpieces would do well to listen to the voices of an increasing number of people. They would also be wise to see Justice Archie’s criticisms as a necessary corrective to those constitutional clauses which facilitate authoritarian rule.

We suspect that much of civic society will share the Chief Justice’s views, including many within the PNM itself, since we have not seen any indication that the Draft Constitution enjoys the total, or even partial, support of the party now in power.

Moreover, the fact that the Chief Justice has added his voice to the growing chorus of critics should send a strong message to Prime Minister Manning. One part of that message, which he already knows, is that his Draft will never get the required majority it needs in Parliament. But what Mr Manning may not realise is that even if, given current Opposition disarray, he were to gain the needed majority in the next general election, the Draft Constitution would still cause widespread consternation.

Indeed, given this country’s tradition of democratic protest, Mr Manning may well find, when the crunch does come, that he would have awakened not so much a sleeping dragon - since public protests have become even more ingrained over time in the Trinbagonian psyche - but a restless one.

Mr Manning, however, is too schooled a politician not to retreat in good enough time, rather than risk radically upping the political stakes by cavalierly giving not only the parliamentary opposition but all of the forces opposed to him a political plum around which to stridently and even successfully coalesce.