Due process can be de­fined as the col­lec­tion of for­mal mech­a­nisms that fol­low es­tab­lished rules and pro­ce­dures as es­tab­lished by a court of law or a con­sti­tu­tion to achieve a re­sult. Strong or­gan­i­sa­tions gen­er­al­ly have an orig­i­nat­ing doc­u­ment or con­sti­tu­tion that de­fines the pro­ce­dures that would gov­ern rou­tine changes such as the for­mal han­dover of pow­er.

Peo­ple write con­sti­tu­tions and there­fore can­not an­tic­i­pate every fu­ture de­vel­op­ment. What is im­por­tant is that the rules and pro­ce­dures em­bod­ied in a con­sti­tu­tion­al doc­u­ment should be fol­lowed to ad­dress new cir­cum­stances. A prece­dent, or an ear­li­er event or ex­am­ple, can be con­sid­ered as a guide in sub­se­quent or sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances.

No T&T Prime Min­is­ter has ever re­signed from this con­sti­tu­tion­al of­fice, or re­signed in an elec­tion year, or while the coun­try was in a State of Emer­gency. To be clear, Dr Row­ley has nei­ther re­signed from the of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter nor as po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM.

To date, he has on­ly in­ti­mat­ed his in­ten­tion ver­bal­ly at a press con­fer­ence and has not re­duced this de­ci­sion to writ­ing. The man­ner and time of his de­par­ture are, to put it mild­ly, un­for­tu­nate. This pub­lic res­ig­na­tion an­nounce­ment with no firm date, and the im­pli­ca­tion that he will re­main as par­ty po­lit­i­cal leader to di­rect the par­ty, has cre­at­ed con­fu­sion.

Dr Row­ley’s at­tempt to anoint a suc­ces­sor des­ig­nate has led to an in­for­mal lead­er­ship bat­tle as PNM MPs are re­port­ed to have re­fused to sign a let­ter sup­port­ing Stu­art Young, Dr Row­ley’s des­ig­nat­ed suc­ces­sor. The pro­ce­dure used to ap­point a suc­ces­sor on Er­ic Williams’ death whilst in of­fice is not a prece­dent that can be used in the cur­rent brouha­ha.

The point in 1981 was clear: a coun­try can­not be with­out a prime min­is­ter. Dr Williams’ death cre­at­ed an emer­gency. There was no ob­vi­ous suc­ces­sor, and the pres­i­dent used his con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­er to ap­point George Cham­bers as prime min­is­ter. The par­ty sub­se­quent­ly vot­ed to ap­point Cham­bers as po­lit­i­cal leader to fill the va­can­cy cre­at­ed by Dr Williams’ death.

Mr Cham­bers lost his seat in the 1986 elec­tion and re­signed as po­lit­i­cal leader there­upon. Patrick Man­ning was recog­nised as the op­po­si­tion leader in the House by the oth­er two PNM MPs who sur­vived the elec­toral rout. Sub­se­quent­ly, the par­ty ap­point­ed Mr Man­ning po­lit­i­cal leader.

Dr Row­ley’s res­ig­na­tion an­nounce­ment is dif­fer­ent from the prece­dents cit­ed above. Dr Williams’ death and the PNM de­feat pre­sent­ed the PNM par­ty with no op­tions. By con­trast, Dr Row­ley is, to all in­tents and pur­pos­es, com­pos men­tis, alive, and has not re­signed from ei­ther of­fice. There is no emer­gency, and there is time for the par­ty mem­ber­ship to de­cide who they want as leader.

In these cir­cum­stances, the par­ty must have the de­fin­i­tive say, not Dr Row­ley. Dr Row­ley rep­re­sents the past, not the fu­ture. Any at­tempt to re­main to “guide” the par­ty or con­trol the Cab­i­net be­hind the scenes is an un­ac­cept­able de­vel­op­ment and un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic.

This was the con­text in which yes­ter­day’s gen­er­al coun­cil took place. There were many is­sues to dis­cuss, not the least of which was the suc­ces­sion is­sue, giv­en Dr Row­ley’s an­nounce­ment. The key point is that Dr Row­ley’s plan could on­ly pro­ceed with the ap­proval of the PNM’s par­ty ma­chin­ery. Now that Stu­art Young has been le­git­imised as the “Prime Min­is­ter-des­ig­nate” by the gen­er­al coun­cil, we will see how this arrange­ment de­vel­ops.