Der­ren Joseph

On Sat­ur­day, 15th No­vem­ber, the con­sti­tu­tion re­form con­sul­ta­tion process had its third meet­ing in San­gre Grande. In my opin­ion, this was the most vi­brant fo­rum in the se­ries, thus far. Again, I ac­knowl­edge that like every­thing else, it is im­per­fect, and some have ex­pressed a view that the process is rel­a­tive­ly top-down, where­as a more bot­tom-up ap­proach would be pre­ferred. Some go on to ar­gue that non-par­tic­i­pa­tion is the best way to protest. I, how­ev­er, would agree with the gen­tle­man at the fo­rum who, while ad­mit­ting that he is against the Man­ning-led ad­min­is­tra­tion, main­tains that "there is no ex­cuse for peo­ple not to ex­press their views, and if they do not, then they have none."

One con­trib­u­tor spec­u­lat­ed that the re­al mo­ti­va­tion for the present thrust lay in the "scan­dalous way" a pre­vi­ous pres­i­dent re­fused to take di­rec­tives/in­struc­tions from the prime min­is­ter. Re­gard­less of whether this is true or not, this has pre­sent­ed us with an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­view our en­tire sys­tem of gov­er­nance. I see wis­dom in tak­ing ad­van­tage of this op­por­tu­ni­ty. For me, one of the more ex­cit­ing pro­pos­als in the draft doc­u­ment is the ef­fec­tive re­moval of the ex­ec­u­tive from the leg­is­la­ture, giv­en that the Pres­i­dent, when elect­ed and ap­point­ed, must va­cate his seat in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Two weeks ago, I touched on some of the in­flu­ence flow­ing to the Ma­jor­i­ty Leader of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, both in the leg­is­la­ture and par­ty ma­chin­ery, as a re­sult of this shift. Ben­e­fits of this shift could in­clude a greater fo­cus by leg­is­la­tors on leg­is­lat­ing, as well as an up­surge in com­mit­tee work like we ob­serve in the US sys­tem. The leg­is­la­ture could then spend more time ex­er­cis­ing over­sight of min­istries, state en­ter­pris­es and so on. In fact, Par­lia­ment may even sit more fre­quent­ly, since MPs would be less dis­tract­ed by ex­ec­u­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

To­day, I want­ed to con­sid­er an­oth­er as­pect of this re­moval of the ex­ec­u­tive from the leg­is­la­ture. It could lead to a shift in the way in which MPs view ser­vice. See­ing that on­ly a max­i­mum of four MPs would be in­vit­ed in­to the Cab­i­net, most MPs would spend their time ei­ther rep­re­sent­ing their con­stituents or leg­is­lat­ing. Be­ing a min­is­ter, or even oc­cu­py­ing a seat in Cab­i­net, would no longer be an op­tion for most MPs. On the one hand, some ar­gue that there are MPs who run for of­fice with be­ing a min­is­ter as their end game.

A con­trib­u­tor at the San­gre Grande meet­ing went so far as to say that in its present form, the draft con­sti­tu­tion would "nev­er see the light of day," as MPs would nev­er vote them­selves out of a (sig­nif­i­cant part of their) job. On the oth­er hand, some may ar­gue that when MPs are al­so min­is­ters, it en­hances their abil­i­ty to serve those who vot­ed for them and their par­ty. Would hav­ing sep­a­rate MPs and spe­cialised min­is­ters work out bet­ter for us cit­i­zens? I am in­ter­est­ed to see how this de­bate evolves. With re­gard to the Sen­ate, how­ev­er, some have ex­pressed con­cerns.

The "Work­ing Doc­u­ment" says that the Sen­ate shall con­sist of 37 mem­bers, con­sti­tut­ed as fol­lows: 19 shall be ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent, act­ing in his dis­cre­tion; sev­en shall be ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent, act­ing on the ad­vice of the Mi­nor­i­ty Leader; and 11 shall be ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent, af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with var­i­ous in­ter­est groups or or­gan­i­sa­tions. These groups or or­gan­i­sa­tions are busi­ness; labour; the en­vi­ron­ment; the vil­lage coun­cil move­ment; the en­er­gy sec­tor; and fi­nance. Fi­nal­ly, af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the House of As­sem­bly, two per­sons are ap­point­ed from To­ba­go as sen­a­tors.

With the Pres­i­dent ap­point­ing both Gov­ern­ment and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, would that sti­fle opin­ions? What is or would be the re­al pur­pose of the Sen­ate? Should we abol­ish it and have a uni­cam­er­al leg­is­la­ture? Should Sen­a­tors be elect­ed us­ing some for­mu­la? I am among those who be­lieve that the Sen­ate leads to greater di­ver­si­ty of opin­ion and a greater range of de­bate on is­sues of na­tion­al im­por­tance. It al­so gives more, tal­ent­ed in­di­vid­u­als an op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve us all.

At the same time, I agree with those who ar­gue that (an ap­point­ed) Sen­ate should nev­er de­lib­er­ate­ly thwart the wish­es of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, which is com­prised of MPs elect­ed by the peo­ple.

Nev­er­the­less, it is im­por­tant to have a mech­a­nism for such ap­point­ments that ap­pears to be "fair." I sus­pect that this is­sue will be re­solved in the on­go­ing con­sul­ta­tion process. My name is Der­ren Joseph and I love my coun­try. As al­ways, I end by say­ing that de­spite our chal­lenges, we are so blessed to live in this beau­ti­ful land. Let us con­tin­ue to have the au­dac­i­ty of hope in our coun­try, as we move to­wards Vi­sion 2020.