Re­marks by His Ex­cel­len­cy An­tho­ny Thomas Aquinas Car­mona ORTT, S.C. at the Cer­e­mo­ni­al Open­ing of the Fourth Ses­sion of the Tenth Par­lia­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go at the Par­lia­ment Cham­ber, Tow­er D, Port of Spain In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Cen­tre, Port of Spain on Fri­day 2nd Au­gust, 2013 at 1.30p.m.

Sen­a­tor the Ho­n­ourable Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith, Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate

The Ho­n­ourable Mr. Wade Mark, Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives

Oth­er Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment

Spe­cial­ly In­vit­ed Guests

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Me­dia

Oth­er Dis­tin­guished Ladies and Gen­tle­men:

Good af­ter­noon to all.

The Cer­e­mo­ni­al Open­ing of the Fourth Ses­sion of the Tenth Par­lia­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go af­fords me as Head of the Par­lia­ment the op­por­tu­ni­ty to share with you, Ho­n­ourable Mem­bers, is­sues vi­tal in re­al­is­ing the vi­sion of good gov­er­nance to which we must all as­pire.

As a par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy, the Par­lia­ment is the ve­hi­cle by which we, the cit­i­zens, gov­ern our­selves, through both elect­ed and un­elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives. It is in this vein that I wish to draw at­ten­tion to the im­por­tance of ef­fec­tive CO­OP­ER­A­TION and the in­ter-de­pen­dence of the var­i­ous arms of Par­lia­ment: the Pres­i­dent, the Sen­ate and the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Ho­n­ourable Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, Ladies and Gen­tle­men:

It has been sug­gest­ed that, giv­en the pow­er ex­er­cised by the Prime Min­is­ter and the Cab­i­net in the West­min­ster mod­el, "a more ac­cu­rate con­tem­po­rary de­scrip­tion of par­lia­men­tary gov­ern­ment might well be 'Cab­i­net or Prime Min­is­te­r­i­al gov­ern­ment'". And yet, the phi­los­o­phy that in­forms the West­min­ster mod­el of gov­ern­ment and which has pro­vid­ed the ba­sis for our own po­lit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tions and norms, re­flects the premise, ac­cord­ing to Ger­ald Schmitz, 1998, The Op­po­si­tion in a Par­lia­men­tary Sys­tem "a del­i­cate bal­ance must be main­tained be­tween per­mit­ting elect­ed gov­ern­ments to gov­ern and leg­is­late ef­fec­tive­ly, and en­sur­ing that pow­er is ex­er­cised with care and re­spect for mi­nori­ties and dis­sent­ing views". The term "del­i­cate bal­ance" is sig­nif­i­cant. My pre­de­ces­sor, Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards, has high­light­ed the fact that the gov­ern­ment is ac­count­able to the Par­lia­ment and that "over­sight of the gov­ern­ment on be­half of the pub­lic is Par­lia­ment's role and not a role on­ly for the Op­po­si­tion".

Now, it is the prop­er busi­ness and du­ty of an Op­po­si­tion to per­suade the peo­ple that the ap­proach­es and poli­cies that it ad­vo­cates con­sti­tute an im­prove­ment on what is be­ing pro­posed by the gov­ern­ment of the day. But, by de­vot­ing the re­quired time and care to scru­ti­niz­ing leg­is­la­tion pro­posed by the Gov­ern­ment and by of­fer­ing con­struc­tive in­formed crit­i­cism, not on­ly the Op­po­si­tion, but all par­lia­men­tar­i­ans may be ex­pect­ed to co­op­er­ate in hold­ing the Gov­ern­ment ac­count­able, oblig­ing it "to de­fend and jus­ti­fy its poli­cies and ad­min­is­tra­tive de­ci­sions" and to re-con­sid­er, even amend pro­pos­als so that they are more in keep­ing with what may be per­ceived as the gen­er­al good. Time­ly re­ceipt of pol­i­cy doc­u­ments and draft bills is an im­per­a­tive to fa­cil­i­tate both scruti­ny and the counter-pro­pos­als of all Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans.

As the en­gine room for na­tion­al po­lit­i­cal de­bate, Par­lia­ment, then, must be about "the Peo­ple's busi­ness" not "the Par­ty's busi­ness". In oth­er words, as lead­ers and law­mak­ers, par­lia­men­tar­i­ans of dif­fer­ing po­lit­i­cal per­sua­sions are still ex­pect­ed to CO­OP­ER­ATE on mat­ters that pro­mote the de­vel­op­ment, se­cu­ri­ty and up­lift­ing of the so­ci­ety. Once a "del­i­cate bal­ance" is struck, all Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans may be seen to be co­op­er­at­ing, even col­lab­o­rat­ing to en­sure that Bills passed are in the wider pub­lic in­ter­est.

In­deed, I can think im­me­di­ate­ly of two ar­eas in which such col­lab­o­ra­tion might be con­sid­ered both fea­si­ble and time­ly.

I re­fer first to the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ), which is lo­cat­ed in the heart of Port of Spain. We cur­rent­ly have leg­is­la­tion that gives ju­ris­dic­tion to the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC), to the ad hoc In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Tri­bunal for the for­mer Yu­goslavia (IC­TY) and the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Tri­bunal for Rwan­da (IC­TR). Yet we have none that rec­og­nizes the fi­nal ap­pel­late ju­ris­dic­tion of the CCJ. Why can't we start be­liev­ing in our­selves and our com­pe­ten­cies? Let there be a vote of con­science, by se­cret bal­lot, on whether it be­comes the fi­nal Court of Ap­peal or, if as Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans you lack the con­fi­dence to make that change, place it be­fore the elec­torate by way of pub­lic ref­er­en­dum on the bal­lot pa­per. The up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions, in two months' time, af­fords an ide­al op­por­tu­ni­ty for do­ing this. We must no longer pussy­foot on the mat­ter.

The sec­ond is­sue, Elec­tion Cam­paign Fi­nanc­ing, is a ver­i­ta­ble jug­ger­naut that re­sults in fi­nanciers ar­ro­gat­ing po­lit­i­cal pow­er un­to them­selves and there­by un­der­min­ing the sys­tem of gov­er­nance. Cu­ri­ous­ly, when po­lit­i­cal par­ties are in op­po­si­tion they call for trans­paren­cy in cam­paign fi­nanc­ing; yet, when in the seat of pow­er they con­ve­nient­ly ne­glect to ad­dress the is­sue. We must re­al­ly get se­ri­ous. The time has come when we must bite the bul­let of cam­paign fi­nanc­ing re­form and in­tro­duce ap­pro­pri­ate mea­sures for dis­clo­sure, re­port­ing and en­force­ment laws to en­sure trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty in the man­age­ment of the coun­try's elec­toral sys­tem. This will cer­tain­ly build cit­i­zen con­fi­dence and en­hance our sys­tem of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance. The need for leg­is­la­tion cre­at­ing a Con­trac­tor Gen­er­al to ad­dress the is­sue of ten­der­ing pro­ce­dures must be con­sid­ered.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, for many years, there have been al­le­ga­tions of prof­li­gate en­rich­ment by per­sons in au­thor­i­ty. There have been com­plaints and ob­ser­va­tions for just as many years that the as­set base of politi­cians is in­con­sis­tent with their in­come and tax re­turns and there has been a hue and cry for the in­ter­ven­tion of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion or the Fraud Squad. Why are we tak­ing such a di­ver­gent route when we can wake up that sleep­ing gi­ant called the Board of In­land Rev­enue? Rise from your slum­ber. Do what you are em­pow­ered to do. The em­pire of mafia boss Al Capone was de­stroyed by his con­vic­tion of the crime of tax eva­sion. Ever since I worked at the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, this has been my clar­i­on cry to per­sons in au­thor­i­ty, through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go. The re­join­der from those in au­thor­i­ty was a jaun­diced eye in my di­rec­tion and deaf­en­ing si­lence.

Yet, crime con­tin­ues to be the scourge of our so­ci­ety. If ever there was a need to co­op­er­ate and en­gage in re­al­is­tic bi­par­ti­san meth­ods, the time is now. For far too long, we have ad­dressed the is­sue of crime with a fo­cus on con­tain­ment and not from a more holis­tic per­spec­tive. Leg­is­la­tion in the Par­lia­ment ap­pears to deal, fig­u­ra­tive­ly, with the bolt­ed horse and not the horse in the sta­ble. For in­stance, laws ad­dress­ing parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty must be con­sid­ered to en­sure that the child or the ju­ve­nile does not be­come a crim­i­nal be­cause of the re­cal­ci­trant par­ent.

Ladies and Gen­tle­men:

As I end this ap­peal for CO­OP­ER­A­TION, I would al­so add, that while meet­ings be­tween the Pres­i­dent and the Prime Min­is­ter may be re­gard­ed by some as a mere ex­er­cise in for­mal re­port­ing, they do pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the Gov­ern­ment to hear the views of the non-aligned in the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process.

I now turn my at­ten­tion to the tim­ing of pre­sen­ta­tions and the in­flu­ence it ex­er­cis­es on the CON­TENT of the par­lia­men­tary de­bates.

What ad­van­tage is there in hav­ing is­sues de­bat­ed at two and three o'clock in the morn­ing? How does this com­pare with the dis­ad­van­tage of a se­vere­ly re­duced com­ple­ment of rep­re­sen­ta­tives, cou­pled with the ob­vi­ous ex­haus­tion of those who have man­aged or have been oblig­ed to stay the course? Does this re­al­ly au­gur well for the qual­i­ty of par­lia­men­tary con­tri­bu­tions? Should ma­jor de­ci­sions, in this the high­est law-mak­ing body in the land, be made when the de­ci­sion-mak­ers are of­ten, bare­ly awake? Would it not be prefer­able to start par­lia­men­tary ses­sions ear­li­er? It is high­ly un­pro­duc­tive to be­gin ses­sions at 1:30pm sub­ject to the va­garies of a heavy lunch and op­pres­sive hu­mid­i­ty. As Head of the Par­lia­ment, I strong­ly sug­gest that Par­lia­ment be­gin at 8:00 am, as we all do, to deal more ef­fi­cient­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly with the na­tion's busi­ness.

The ear­li­er prac­tice of hav­ing Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans not read from a writ­ten, pre­pared speech was sup­pos­ed­ly in­tend­ed to en­cour­age them to re­spond to is­sues raised, rather than re­peat at length ar­gu­ments al­ready ex­plored or rein­tro­duce points up­on which there is al­ready clear agree­ment. De­bat­ing is a skill that must be de­vel­oped. It is in­deed a sore di­ver­sion to ob­serve Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans read­ing speech­es. It can lead to a lack of rea­soned ar­gu­ments and need­less re­gur­gi­ta­tion. Per­haps, we need to em­ploy me­di­a­tion and al­ter­na­tive dis­pute res­o­lu­tion tech­niques to ar­rest this prob­lem.

More­over, while the pre­pared speech­es of MPs might score po­lit­i­cal points, they do not en­able the lis­ten­ing pub­lic to scru­ti­nise and to de­vel­op a crit­i­cal un­der­stand­ing of na­tion­al is­sues and how var­i­ous pieces of leg­is­la­tion might af­fect them, im­me­di­ate­ly, and in the longer term. We are re­mind­ed that, as trustee of the na­tion's pat­ri­mo­ny and re­sources, gov­ern­ment's role is one of stew­ard and not bene­fac­tor.

The elect­ed gov­ern­ment of the day is not a bene­fac­tor of the Na­tion's rich­es but rather a fa­cil­i­ta­tor of its dis­tri­b­u­tion. The gov­ern­ment should en­sure that the na­tion's re­sources are even­ly and fair­ly dis­trib­uted, not based on how one choos­es to cast one's vote. It makes a mock­ery of a democ­ra­cy if the ex­er­cise of my civic right at­tracts pun­ish­ment, ver­bal fla­gel­la­tion and mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion. Re­gret­tably, this has been the modus of suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments in the main.

In keep­ing with this, I posed the same ques­tion in my ad­dress to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, on April 26th of this year:

"How of­ten, as lead­ers, we see the need to pro­tect the voice­less, the mar­gin­alised and the dis­pos­sessed among us and we see this strict­ly in terms of class and oth­er so­cial struc­tures, con­ve­nient­ly for­get­ting that it equal­ly ap­plies in the are­na of pol­i­tics? Where there is no rep­re­sen­ta­tion, voic­es can be si­lenced. Mo­han­das Gand­hi once said, "I un­der­stand democ­ra­cy as some­thing that gives the weak the same chance as the strong". Dear as­sem­bly­men and women, you have the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to en­sure that no one in To­ba­go, or Trinidad, suf­fers from the va­garies of what I will term 'ma­jor­i­ty pol­i­tics'."

Madam Prime Min­is­ter, Mr. Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, Mr. Speak­er, Ho­n­ourable Mem­bers all:

I bring to my Of­fice the con­vic­tion that the Par­lia­ment must be an en­gine for pos­i­tive change. And to­day, when the con­cept of ci­vil­i­ty seems to be every­where un­der threat, the is­sue of dig­ni­ty and deco­rum in Par­lia­men­tary CON­DUCT is a mat­ter of grave im­por­tance. This must not be lost on Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans.

Para­graph 7 of Res­o­lu­tion 1903 (2012) of the Coun­cil of Eu­rope in­cludes this in­ter­est­ing state­ment:

Mem­bers' con­duct is first and fore­most a mat­ter of per­son­al be­lief and con­vic­tion;

How­ev­er, their be­hav­iour has to meet the ex­pec­ta­tions of those who placed their

con­fi­dence in an elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive...the de­clared com­mit­ment to abide by the

code of con­duct de­pends from the out­set on mem­bers' will­ing­ness to com­ply with it,

in good faith.

Every Ho­n­ourable Mem­ber present to­day has tak­en the oath to "bear true faith and al­le­giance to Trinidad and To­ba­go...and to con­sci­en­tious­ly and im­par­tial­ly dis­charge the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go." It is time to con­sid­er whether we are in con­tra­ven­tion of the oath that we have tak­en, whether we have fall­en short. Is our great­est al­le­giance to our coun­try or are there com­pet­ing al­le­giances? Can we say that we are dis­charg­ing our du­ties in a man­ner that is "scrupu­lous, painstak­ing, prin­ci­pled and gov­erned by con­science"?

If we can­not, my fel­low Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, then we have not done as we have sworn to do. We are in breach of our con­tract with the cit­i­zens of the na­tion. What our na­tion needs at this time is a re­turn to ho­n­our. The chal­lenge we have faced, for many, many years, is the lack of per­son­al cred­i­bil­i­ty in our lead­ers, in every sphere. And where lead­ers go, the na­tion fol­lows. The ques­tion has been asked,"What is left when ho­n­our is lost?" Ladies and Gen­tle­men, ho­n­our can­not be leg­is­lat­ed. Ho­n­our does not on­ly in­volve dis­tin­guish­ing be­tween right and wrong. Ho­n­our de­mands that we es­chew the very per­cep­tion of wrong­do­ing and im­pro­pri­ety. A Uni­ver­si­ty Ed­u­ca­tion does not make one ho­n­ourable. Wealth does not make one ho­n­ourable. High rank or po­si­tion does not make one ho­n­ourable. Ladies and Gen­tle­men, to be ho­n­ourable re­quires that one com­mit to al­ways do­ing the right thing be­cause it is the right thing to do, re­gard­less of the con­se­quences and ig­nor­ing the po­ten­tial re­wards of do­ing oth­er­wise. It is ho­n­our in lead­er­ship that will in­spire con­fi­dence in our peo­ple and re­sult in the sta­bil­i­ty of our na­tion. Our na­tion is de­pend­ing on ho­n­ourable lead­ers in Par­lia­ment to demon­strate the un­der­stand­ing that they are called both to lead and to serve and that it is in faith­ful and con­sci­en­tious ser­vice that ho­n­our lies. Lead­er­ship must be in­spired and in­spir­ing and, Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, you some­times fall short in the con­duct you dis­play in and out of the Par­lia­ment.

And this brings me to an­oth­er as­pect of Par­lia­men­tary CON­DUCT.

Ladies and Gen­tle­men:

I am no stranger to "Fa­tigue" and no one en­joys well-placed "pi­cong" as much as I; but the rule that says mem­bers par­tic­i­pat­ing in de­bate must ad­dress the Speak­er, is one way of dis­cour­ag­ing di­rect, heat­ed ex­changes, and fore­stalling the in­tro­duc­tion of of­fen­sive, in­sult­ing, provoca­tive or threat­en­ing lan­guage. The im­pulse to en­gage in the­atrics may well prove ir­re­sistible when one is in sight of tele­vi­sion cam­eras. How­ev­er, in­dulging in forms of com­mu­ni­ca­tion that den­i­grate and de­grade not on­ly com­pro­mis­es the sub­stance of a de­bate but, more im­por­tant­ly, it sig­nals to the larg­er pub­lic, and es­pe­cial­ly to our im­pres­sion­able chil­dren, that crass be­hav­iour and dis­re­spect are ac­cept­able modes of con­duct and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Wher­ev­er we find our­selves, our con­duct should re­flect the grav­i­ty of the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty en­trust­ed to us.

To­day in our na­tion, there is a ten­den­cy to ig­nore or to down­play the re­spect that ac­crues to pub­lic of­fices. But while it is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of a ma­ture pub­lic to re­spect the Of­fices of the land, it is al­so the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the of­fice­hold­ers to earn that re­spect by their con­duct while in of­fice.

Madam Prime Min­is­ter, Mr. Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, Mr. Speak­er, Ho­n­ourable Mem­bers all:

Four and a half months ago, on as­sum­ing the Pres­i­den­cy, I swore to "pre­serve and de­fend the Con­sti­tu­tion and the law" and "to de­vote my­self to the ser­vice and well-be­ing of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go." There are el­e­ments of the pre­am­ble to our Con­sti­tu­tion that have res­onat­ed with me and which have en­cour­aged me, in ad­di­tion to my con­sti­tu­tion­al du­ties, to em­bark on var­i­ous ini­tia­tives aimed at help­ing to pre­serve, in par­tic­u­lar, the spir­it of our Con­sti­tu­tion.

One of these is the in­volve­ment of stu­dents as wit­ness­es to im­por­tant cer­e­monies and high pro­file vis­its, as a means of bring­ing them in­to close con­tact with lead­ers, both lo­cal and for­eign. "Lunch With The Pres­i­dent", for ex­am­ple, al­lows the na­tion's stu­dents the op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­gage with The Pres­i­den­cy in a per­son­al way, draw­ing them in­to the gov­er­nance process, and en­cour­ag­ing them to par­tic­i­pate in the fu­ture de­vel­op­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go by af­firm­ing their spe­cial val­ue to the na­tion.

For the same rea­son, I want to com­mend the out­reach pro­gramme of the Par­lia­ment which in­cludes school vis­its by the Sen­ate Pres­i­dent and Speak­er of the House and tours of the Par­lia­ment. For far too long, ours has been a democ­ra­cy prac­tised in ig­no­rance. Par­lia­ment's out­reach pro­gramme is (yet) an­oth­er means of sen­si­tis­ing our young peo­ple to the im­por­tance and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of Par­lia­ment and Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans.

And here I want to raise the is­sue of the Con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sion that no per­son un­der the age of 25 can qual­i­fy to be a sen­a­tor in the Up­per House. It is a di­nosaur piece of leg­is­la­tion lack­ing in vi­sion. In every gen­er­a­tion there comes along an ex­cep­tion­al hu­man be­ing un­der the age of 25 and there should be a con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sion for such an oc­cur­rence. The ma­jor­i­ty of par­lia­men­tar­i­ans here to­day will nev­er get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­dress the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly as 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai did in her de­fi­ant re­sponse to Tal­iban Mil­i­tants who at­tempt­ed to take her life and de­stroy her dream of change and ed­u­ca­tion. Young Malala stat­ed "They thought that the bul­lets would si­lence us, but they failed. And out of that si­lence came thou­sands of voic­es... noth­ing changed in my life ex­cept this: weak­ness, fear and hope­less­ness died. Strength, pow­er and courage were born...[I am not] here to speak in terms of per­son­al re­venge...I do not even hate the Tal­ib who shot me...This is the com­pas­sion I have learned from Mo­hamed, the prophet of mer­cy, Je­sus Christ and Lord Bud­dha. This is the lega­cy of change I have in­her­it­ed from Mar­tin Luther King, Nel­son Man­dela and Mo­hammed Ali Jin­nah. This is the phi­los­o­phy of non-vi­o­lence that I have learned from Gand­hi, Bacha Khan and Moth­er Tere­sa."

Ho­n­ourable Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans:

I ad­here ful­ly to a phi­los­o­phy that cel­e­brates both the in­de­pen­dence and the com­pas­sion of the hu­man spir­it. I will not, there­fore, be bur­dened by the crony­ism of the past and the present or en­gaged in a fos­silized in­ter­pre­ta­tion of my con­sti­tu­tion­al re­mit. I will not budge from en­gag­ing pro­gres­sive change nor will I be bul­lied by those who can­not cope with such change. The Pres­i­dent's door will be open to pro­vide ac­cess to those out­side the cor­ri­dors of pow­er, in­flu­ence and con­tact so that their ex­is­tence and their de­sire to serve will not be lim­it­ed by their seem­ing anonymi­ty. I have a deep re­spect for in­sti­tu­tion­al mem­o­ry and it has its place and rel­e­vance but I al­so be­lieve in cre­at­ing lines of suc­ces­sion and, for far too long, with con­sec­u­tive gov­ern­ments we have the same faces with the same old philoso­phies and tired ideas. We need as a na­tion to en­gage our young in­tel­lec­tu­als and not sim­ply speak of the 'Sin­ga­pore Mod­el' with­out en­sur­ing that our best and bright­est are in gov­er­nance and in the Par­lia­ment. This Pres­i­dent, much to the cha­grin of some, will not en­gage, fig­u­ra­tive­ly speak­ing, in the re­cy­cling of plas­tic bot­tles.

Be­fore clos­ing, al­low me to re­fer to my In­au­gur­al Ad­dress in which I stat­ed that there are pow­ers which the Pres­i­dent has and pow­ers which he does not have.

As a gen­er­al rule, in the ex­er­cise of his func­tions, the Pres­i­dent is man­dat­ed to act in ac­cor­dance with the ad­vice of the Cab­i­net, or a Min­is­ter act­ing un­der the gen­er­al au­thor­i­ty of the Cab­i­net. How­ev­er, this gen­er­al rule does not al­ways ap­ply. May I re­peat, this gen­er­al rule does not al­ways ap­ply. At times, he is re­quired to act in his dis­cre­tion, or af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with some oth­er per­son or au­thor­i­ty (Sec­tion 80(1)). Where the Pres­i­dent is re­quired to act in his own dis­cre­tion, as for ex­am­ple in the ap­point­ment of the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, he may un­doubt­ed­ly seek the coun­sel of any per­son who in his judg­ment could be of as­sis­tance. He may al­so choose not to con­sult with any­one at all. At the end of the day, the de­ci­sion is his and his alone.

Sim­i­lar­ly, where the Pres­i­dent is re­quired to act af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with some per­son or au­thor­i­ty, it is ex­pect­ed that he will en­gage in a mean­ing­ful process of con­sul­ta­tion. But again, hav­ing done so, the de­ci­sion is his and his alone.

On the oth­er hand, where the Pres­i­dent is re­quired to act in ac­cor­dance with the ad­vice of the Cab­i­net, or a Min­is­ter act­ing un­der the gen­er­al au­thor­i­ty of Cab­i­net, or of some oth­er per­son or au­thor­i­ty, he is oblig­ed to act on that ad­vice. In these in­stances, the de­ci­sion is not his, but that of the per­son on whose ad­vice he must act.

Nev­er­the­less, the ad­vice ten­dered to the Pres­i­dent must it­self be law­ful. The Pres­i­dent is not oblig­ed to act in ac­cor­dance with ad­vice which is con­trary to the law, that is il­le­gal, un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and out­side of the ju­ris­dic­tion of the per­son ten­der­ing the ad­vice. If it is against the law, he is du­ty bound to ig­nore any such ad­vice. For ex­am­ple, the Pres­i­dent would be oblig­ed to re­ject the ad­vice of the Prime Min­is­ter or the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion to ap­point some­one to the post of Sen­a­tor who is not qual­i­fied un­der the con­sti­tu­tion to hold that po­si­tion.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, it is now com­mon­place that, in ap­pro­pri­ate cir­cum­stances, the Pres­i­dent would de­lay im­ple­men­ta­tion of the ad­vice ten­dered to him in or­der that he may bring to the at­ten­tion of the de­ci­sion-mak­er mat­ters which, in his con­sid­ered but re­strained judg­ment, might have been over­looked.

Two of my im­por­tant con­sti­tu­tion­al du­ties as Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go which I have al­ready ex­er­cised are the ap­point­ment of In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors and mem­bers of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. Un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion and ap­plic­a­ble leg­is­la­tion, the for­mer ap­point­ment is made in my own dis­cre­tion while the lat­ter is made, by me, af­ter the rel­e­vant con­sul­ta­tion. There­fore, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for these choic­es rests en­tire­ly on my shoul­ders. In mak­ing ap­point­ments such ap­point­ments, I will al­ways be true to my Oath of Of­fice to "con­sci­en­tious­ly and im­par­tial­ly dis­charge the func­tions of Pres­i­dent." In re­spect of such ap­point­ments, "the buck stops with me."

I saw a need to re­tool the com­po­si­tion of the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­to­r­i­al Bench. I have lis­tened and I have al­so ob­served for years the gaps in that com­po­si­tion. Where were the de­trac­tors in the last three years, when there was no en­er­gy ex­pert on the In­de­pen­dent bench, no per­son of dis­abil­i­ty for some 50 years and no in­ter­na­tion­al­ly-recog­nised ex­pert and aca­d­e­m­ic in fi­nance? Where were you men and women of let­ters?

Con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly, of equal im­por­tance to my in­de­pen­dent ex­er­cise of judg­ment in mak­ing the ap­point­ments, are the pow­ers vest­ed in the Prime Min­is­ter and oth­er Min­is­ters of Gov­ern­ment to "ad­vise" me to ap­point par­tic­u­lar per­sons named by them to var­i­ous po­si­tions. Such Min­is­ters bear the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for such se­lec­tions, al­though the ac­tu­al in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment are un­der the hand of the Pres­i­dent. I am sim­ply up­hold­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the law when I give ef­fect to those de­ci­sions, which are law­ful­ly to be made by oth­ers. It is im­por­tant that the pub­lic un­der­stand this con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ple and the rea­son for it.

I have no au­thor­i­ty to refuse to ap­point the per­sons put for­ward by the Prime Min­is­ter or oth­er Min­is­ters, or in some in­stances the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion. It would be con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly in­cor­rect for me to seek to do so.

Just as se­lec­tions prop­er­ly made by me in my own judg­ment are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly re­quired to be ac­cept­ed by oth­ers, like­wise, as Pres­i­dent, I am re­quired to ac­cept the choic­es made by oth­ers in ac­cor­dance with the ap­plic­a­ble con­sti­tu­tion­al or statu­to­ry pro­vi­sions.

I will make my own de­ci­sions where I am au­tho­rized by the Con­sti­tu­tion or oth­er law so to do, but in re­spect of mat­ters where the au­thor­i­ty to make the de­ci­sion is vest­ed in an­oth­er per­son, I will fol­low the Con­sti­tu­tion and the law and give ef­fect to their de­ci­sion.

It is still quite prop­er for a Pres­i­dent to coun­sel and warn against any ad­vice or rec­om­men­da­tion that he con­sid­ers to be un­wise, and this I have done, with a mea­sure of suc­cess, but the Pres­i­dent can­not refuse to ex­e­cute a law­ful de­ci­sion made by a Min­is­ter or the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion. As Pres­i­dent I un­der­stand this very clear­ly, and it is im­por­tant that the pub­lic al­so rec­og­nize and ap­pre­ci­ate the im­por­tance of this con­sti­tu­tion­al po­si­tion.

Ladies and Gen­tle­men:

I have used the oc­ca­sion of the Open­ing of this Fourth Ses­sion of the Tenth Par­lia­ment to again raise the is­sues of faith­ful ser­vice, per­son­al ho­n­our and pro­bity in pub­lic af­fairs.

A new ses­sion in­vari­ably gives rise, in its own small way, to the ex­cite­ment of a "new be­gin­ning"... a new be­gin­ning in­formed, at once, by an aware­ness of new and on­go­ing chal­lenges and the un­der­stand­ing that meet­ing these chal­lenges may re­quire pre­vi­ous­ly un­plumbed lev­els of com­mit­ment to the ide­al of na­tion build­ing.

I am con­fi­dent, how­ev­er, that we have the courage and the wis­dom to treat with these chal­lenges suc­cess­ful­ly. And so, in clos­ing, Ho­n­ourable Mem­bers, I need on­ly wish you a pro­duc­tive ses­sion and thank you for the cour­tesy of your kind at­ten­tion.

May God con­tin­ue to bless the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.