He­len Dray­ton

Ca­lyp­son­ian De­von Seal’s lat­est dit­ty “Use­less In­ven­tions”, sums up the sta­tus quo nice­ly: “Where smug­gling is fought/Guns pass­ing in grappe, to jack up crime/Is not dey slack or cus­toms soft/But be­hind dey back some turn it off/So de­spite re­ports and the best in­ten­tions/Scan­ners on de port are a use­less in­ven­tion.”

Read be­tween the ca­lyp­so lines, and one sees gov­er­nance is­sues, poor man­age­ment, un­hin­dered em­ploy­ee vi­o­la­tions, poor work eth­ic, de­fi­cient re­cruit­ment and per­for­mance man­age­ment, low crime de­tec­tion rate, and lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Think about the in­abil­i­ty to achieve a 40-year-old di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion goal, an ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem that still ex­pects dif­fer­ent­ly tal­ent­ed and in­tel­li­gent chil­dren to scale lin­ear bar­ri­ers to ed­u­ca­tion. The Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion can’t do psy­cho­me­t­ric test­ing for po­ten­tial teacher re­cruits, risk­ing the em­ploy­ment of peo­ple with psy­cho­log­i­cal bag­gage, ad­dic­tions, per­verts, and pae­dophiles to teach our chil­dren. Why? Bud­get. Yet, every year, we squan­der mil­lions. The Con­sti­tu­tion is not a cure for that.

If the po­lice of­fi­cers fear re­tal­i­a­tion from gang­sters, the Con­sti­tu­tion can’t cure that. Ex­pect­ing the Po­lice Ser­vice to re-en­gi­neer it­self from with­in is Anan­si’s think­ing, and the Con­sti­tu­tion can’t cure that. Ex­ter­nal help is need­ed to bring fresh blood in­to the man­age­ment and lead­er­ship ranks. It must rid it­self of cor­rupt of­fi­cers. The Po­lice Ser­vice dis­ci­pli­nary process, like sim­i­lar sys­tems in the pub­lic ser­vice, is cum­ber­some and ob­so­lete. Sus­pend­ed of­fi­cers are on leave for years with pay. The pro­mo­tions sys­tem is still ar­cha­ic. The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) should con­sid­er re­view­ing the re­cruit­ment pol­i­cy for com­mis­sion­ers and deputies with the ob­jec­tive of im­prove­ment and rec­om­mend changes as ap­pro­pri­ate. The ex­ist­ing one leaves lit­tle op­por­tu­ni­ty to nom­i­nate the best T&T ex­per­tise from lo­cal, re­gion­al, and in­ter­na­tion­al tal­ent pools. It en­sures that the PSC can vir­tu­al­ly on­ly con­sid­er ap­pli­cants who have con­tributed to shap­ing the Po­lice Ser­vice cul­ture. The low com­pen­sa­tion af­fects the re­cruit­ment of suit­able ex­ter­nal can­di­dates. By no means does this sug­gest that the cur­rent lead­er­ship team mem­bers are not suit­able; af­ter all, they in­her­it­ed years of rust and set­backs aris­ing from po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­di­en­cy, among oth­er rea­sons, in­clud­ing in­sta­bil­i­ty at the helm. We have changed five com­mis­sion­ers (act­ing and per­ma­nent) in 11 years.

Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form–No panacea

Ev­i­dent­ly, over­haul­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion will not be a panacea for the se­vere chal­lenges we must over­come. With­out an over­ar­ch­ing pur­pose and clear goals, po­lit­i­cal cul­ture will un­der­mine progress.

Politi­cians need a par­a­digm shift first. Any leg­isla­tive agen­da for con­sti­tu­tion­al change must be cit­i­zens-cen­tred—their safe­ty, pros­per­i­ty, and hap­pi­ness. A Con­sti­tu­tion is not an in­stru­ment of po­lit­i­cal pow­er but one that pro­motes or­der­li­ness and the com­mon good. Re­gard­less of cir­cum­stances and who is at fault, if cit­i­zens be­lieve that the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion can’t meet to dis­cuss the ter­mi­nal dis­ease of crime, the Con­sti­tu­tion can’t cure that.

Crime talks

How­ev­er, giv­en the ap­par­ent hos­tile re­la­tion­ships, a struc­tured par­lia­men­tary ap­proach to such dis­cus­sion will best serve the pub­lic’s in­ter­est. Frankly, I don’t be­lieve the Op­po­si­tion leader and the Prime Min­is­ter need to be ini­tial­ly in­volved. Par­lia­ment—the peo­ple’s place—can es­tab­lish an ad hoc Com­mit­tee on Crime in­volv­ing the lead­ers cho­sen par­lia­men­tary mem­bers. For good or­der, the Par­lia­ment of­fi­cials can fa­cil­i­tate in-cam­era, round-ta­ble dis­cus­sions and, at the con­clu­sion, pub­lish a re­port of the pro­ceed­ings, in­clud­ing any de­ci­sions. The lead­ers can sit in any­time. The re­port will be pub­licly avail­able, and Par­lia­ment will dis­solve the com­mit­tee.

From all pub­lic ex­pres­sions, cit­i­zens want the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion to meet on crime. They elect­ed them, and politi­cians have an oblig­a­tion to them. It is why a par­a­digm shift is need­ed, as lead­ers should be able to find a way to bridge the chasm, even tem­porar­i­ly, out of re­spect for cit­i­zens who are liv­ing in fear. We can twist and shape a new Con­sti­tu­tion to be the best in the world, but with­out a change in mind­sets and po­lit­i­cal ma­tu­ri­ty, it’s dit­to to “use­less in­ven­tions”.

Con­sti­tu­tion Re­form

Elec­toral Re­form is a sep­a­rate mat­ter, so if I had to se­lect two ar­eas for con­sti­tu­tion­al change, they would be 1) the Jus­tice Sec­tor and in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions’ hu­man re­source ad­min­is­tra­tion func­tions and 2) Ser­vice Com­mis­sions. Times have changed since 1962, and with the com­plex­i­ties of lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al forces im­pact­ing us, chang­ing how gov­ern­ment and state in­sti­tu­tions do busi­ness is long over­due.

Em­pow­er­ing in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions

Tech­nol­o­gy and the grow­ing so­phis­ti­ca­tion of crime are dri­ving rapid trans­for­ma­tion. A1 will soon bring rad­i­cal change to how we dis­pense jus­tice, and the Gov­ern­ment should con­sid­er im­ple­ment­ing steps to free the jus­tice sec­tor from a mori­bund hu­man re­sources ad­min­is­tra­tion sys­tem en­shrined in the Con­sti­tu­tion un­der Ser­vice Com­mis­sions. In­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions need a rel­e­vant, pro­gres­sive, and ef­fi­cient cor­po­rate mod­el that em­pow­ers them to serve the pub­lic in­ter­est. They must have the req­ui­site hu­man re­source ca­pac­i­ty and not re­ly on a be­he­moth Ser­vice Com­mis­sion mod­el that hin­ders de­ci­sion-mak­ing, re­cruit­ment, suc­ces­sion plan­ning, and per­for­mance man­age­ment. The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion re­quires sep­a­rate con­sid­er­a­tion.

As the Chief Jus­tice, the Hon Ivor Archie, said at the open­ing of the 2023 Law Term, “The size and com­plex­i­ty of state op­er­a­tions has out­grown the ca­pac­i­ty and res­i­dent ex­per­tise of a cen­tralised hu­man re­source de­part­ment.” He re­ferred to “the cur­rent dis­con­nects when a Ju­di­cia­ry pro­pos­al was shut down be­cause it was said to con­flict with the pol­i­cy on util­i­sa­tion of con­tract em­ploy­ment es­tab­lished in a Pub­lic Ser­vice Cir­cu­lar in 1992.”

Pro­tect­ing em­ploy­ees

But one shouldn’t lose sight of the rea­sons for the Ser­vice Com­mis­sions’ ex­is­tence that re­main as valid to­day as they were back in 1962. The aim was “to in­su­late them from po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence in the re­cruit­ment, pro­mo­tion, trans­fer, and dis­ci­pline of pub­lic ser­vants and guar­an­tee the com­mis­sions’ au­tonomous sta­tus in ex­er­cis­ing these crit­i­cal hu­man re­source func­tions. They must be neu­tral and free from the un­de­sir­able ef­fects of dis­crim­i­na­tion, nepo­tism, and in­jus­tice.” Re­flect on re­cent hu­man re­source events at the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion of all in­sti­tu­tions.

We must pro­tect em­ploy­ees from de­vi­ous po­lit­i­cal mis­cre­ants. It is no se­cret that peo­ple will tram­ple up­on the com­mon good. How­ev­er, we should trans­form over-cen­tralised colos­sus­es, creak­ing at the hinges, in­to in­sti­tu­tions that ex­act ac­count­abil­i­ty and ef­fi­cien­cy and fol­low the prin­ci­ples of good gov­er­nance.

De­cen­tral­is­ing the HR func­tion

The sig­nif­i­cant prob­lem is over-cen­tral­i­sa­tion, and the com­mis­sions may bet­ter serve as reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies with a strong au­dit­ing arm, us­ing well-es­tab­lished and rep­utable in­de­pen­dent au­di­tors. An op­tion is to de­cen­tralise the hu­man re­source ad­min­is­tra­tive func­tion so that in­de­pen­dent state in­sti­tu­tions, such as those in the Jus­tice sec­tor, the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, the Fi­nan­cial In­sti­tu­tions Unit, the Om­buds­man, and the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions. They re­quire a hy­brid cor­po­rate gov­er­nance struc­ture that al­lows them to re­cruit and man­age their hu­man re­sources and ini­ti­ate dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion.

Elec­toral Re­form

The first-past-the-post bal­lot sys­tem, stat­ed in the Con­sti­tu­tion, has been crit­i­cised by many who ad­vo­cate for pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion. That needs care­ful, im­par­tial con­sid­er­a­tion, as in a high­ly po­larised, small so­ci­ety, such a sys­tem can en­gen­der shaky coali­tion gov­ern­ments, a frag­ment­ed par­ty sys­tem, in­ternecine horse trad­ing and leg­isla­tive grid­lock, re­sult­ing in com­pro­mised leg­is­la­tion and in­sta­bil­i­ty. It has strong mer­its; it im­proves the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the peo­ple and re­duces the like­li­hood of po­lit­i­cal ex­trem­ism. We have had more than a glimpse of the sur­viv­abil­i­ty of coali­tion par­ties. How­ev­er, there are hy­brid mod­els of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion that may mit­i­gate the risks.

We are in threat­en­ing and com­plex times; sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy ren­der sys­tems and process­es ob­so­lete as we blink. Val­ues have changed, and so too have pub­lic ex­pec­ta­tions. Suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments have said they need­ed a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty to achieve con­sti­tu­tion­al change. Once there is a need for leg­isla­tive changes, in­clud­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion, it is in­cum­bent up­on a gov­ern­ment to con­duct pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions and bring for­ward the bill to Par­lia­ment. That should be an on­go­ing process. If leg­is­la­tion that cit­i­zens want fails, the peo­ple will speak at the bal­lot box. Shift the par­a­digm and get rid of the ar­cha­ic “use­less in­ven­tions”.