As we are so often reminded our Constitution gives powers to the executive through section 75 (1) which states, ’There shall be a Cabinet for Trinidad and Tobago which shall have the general direction and control of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago and shall be collectively responsible therefore to Parliament’.

While this power is extremely broad in scope it must follow that Cabinet may not, or direct any other party, to breach any law of the country. The general direction and control of Government involves a wide range of decisions made under the Constitution and the law and thus the Prime Minister is given the power to appoint a wide range of persons to statutory and other positions in state organisations, initially accountable to individual ministries.

Hopefully readers will have noted in the latest post-Cabinet press conference that the Government plans to meet with state enterprises TSTT and PTSC which initiated proceedings to decertify the representative unions, the CWU and the TIWU.

As Minister Mariano Browne reported, the Cabinet took the decision to advise the relevant line ministries to interface with the two boards to reconsider their decisions, a polite way of saying, ’stop it’’. Decertification of any major union must inevitably have an effect nationally and particularly at this time and in our circumstances. Only a foolish board would interpret this to mean anything other than cease and desist.

This newspaper confesses considerable and continued bafflement, not only at the peculiarities of a state enterprise taking legal action against the source of its corporate authority, but at statements allegedly coming from the line minister and from a UDeCOTT director, who happens to be an Independent Senator, seeing nothing inappropriate in UDeCOTT seeking judicial review.

We continue to support strongly the avenue of judicial review for our citizens and organisations as a check against abuse of powers by the Cabinet and other state institutions. But is UDeCOTT simply another individual or organisation seeking to protect basic constitutional rights? We emphatically suggest no. It is a special state enterprise established by Government and thus owned by the citizens of this country through the Corporation Sole, the Minister of Finance, and its line minister is the Minister of Planning, Housing and the Environment. It is part of the Government.

We have called for Mr Calder Hart to stand down or be removed. But in the light of the commission of enquiry retaining British QC Michael Beloff at great cost, bypassing its own team of attorneys, we suggest that the matter has simply gone too far. Mr Manning and his Cabinet has the constitutional, and we might add the moral authority, to terminate the appointments of the current UDeCOTT board and appoint a caretaker board with the full authority to withdraw the current judicial review application and let the commission proceed with its remit.