Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Jack Warn­er's vic­to­ry in the Ch­agua­nas West polls has proven that qual­i­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tion can trump trib­al eth­nic pol­i­tics.How­ev­er, qual­i­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tion has re­mained elu­sive in many ar­eas across the coun­try as the Gov­ern­ment has failed to im­ple­ment its promise of giv­ing cit­i­zens a right to re­call non-per­form­ing par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tives. The right to re­call was sup­posed to be part of con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.

How­ev­er, even though the na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tions on con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form this year has al­ready cost the Gov­ern­ment $6 mil­lion, the right to re­call seems to be on the back burn­er.In her man­i­festo un­veiled in May 2010, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar vowed to ini­ti­ate a process of con­sul­ta­tion to rewrite the Con­sti­tu­tion say­ing, "This will move us away from the cul­ture of max­i­mum lead­er­ship and de­vel­op a pol­i­tics of in­clu­sion rather than the present sys­tem of win­ner takes all."

Among the ideas pro­posed were a right to re­call non-per­form­ing par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tives; fixed elec­tion dates for na­tion­al and lo­cal elec­tions; mech­a­nisms for a ref­er­en­dum process; lim­it­ing the Prime Min­is­ter to two suc­ces­sive terms; rules gov­ern­ing the con­duct of the Gov­ern­ment and po­lit­i­cal par­ties dur­ing an elec­tion pe­ri­od; a stronger In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion; and lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form.How­ev­er, three years lat­er, the much tout­ed right to re­call re­mains elu­sive.

Ro­get: No av­enue to re­move delin­quent MPs un­til elec­tion

Pres­i­dent of the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union An­cel Ro­get said delin­quent par­lia­men­tar­i­ans are en­gag­ing in nepo­tism, cor­rup­tion and poor pro­cure­ment prac­tices, yet there is no av­enue to re­move them un­til elec­tion is called.

Lal­la: Suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments de­lud­ing the peo­ple

For­mer chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, Ken­neth Lal­la said al­though the West­min­ster sys­tem of gov­er­nance has proven in­ad­e­quate, suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments have failed to de­liv­er on con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, de­lud­ing the pop­u­la­tion in­to be­liev­ing it was se­ri­ous about re­form.

Pan­day: If im­ple­ment­ed all Govt MPs will be re­called

How­ev­er, in an in­ter­view, for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day said the right to re­call can­not be im­ple­ment­ed un­less there is a com­plete over­haul of the ex­ist­ing par­lia­men­tary struc­ture."I don't think the in­tro­duc­tion of the right to re­call by it­self is pos­si­ble un­der the present Con­sti­tu­tion," Pan­day said.He added, "The right to re­call can on­ly ap­ply to a dif­fer­ent kind of Con­sti­tu­tion. We must have a Con­sti­tu­tion where we sep­a­rate the Leg­isla­tive from the Ex­ec­u­tive. You have to change the elec­toral sys­tem of first-past-the-post."

Not­ing that the right to re­call was just an elec­tion gim­mick to gar­ner votes, Pan­day said the Gov­ern­ment was not en­gag­ing in prop­er pro­ce­dures for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form."If they im­ple­ment this, all the MPs of the Gov­ern­ment will have to be re­called," Pan­day quipped.

He added, "The process of con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form is wrong. They call a meet­ing which the com­mis­sion­ers sit on and they tell peo­ple they have three min­utes to make a pre­sen­ta­tion. This is too lit­tle time to get the points across. You have to look at peo­ple's prob­lems, es­pe­cial­ly poor peo­ple and de­vise a Con­sti­tu­tion that pro­vides mech­a­nisms to deal with the is­sues."He said if the po­lit­i­cal sys­tem was changed to pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion, there could be a list sys­tem un­der which par­ties can re­call er­rant or non-per­form­ing MPs.

James: It doesn't seem toa be a pri­or­i­ty for Govt

Mean­while, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies lec­tur­er, Dr Win­ford James said the Gov­ern­ment had failed to im­ple­ment the right to re­call be­cause "they are dis­tract­ed by a host of de­vel­op­ments of their own cre­ation.""They did not and have not thought through the le­gal ram­i­fi­ca­tions of an is­sue that sounds ap­peal­ing on the hus­tings but is quite dif­fi­cult to pros­e­cute leg­isla­tive­ly," James said. He added that im­ple­ment­ing this cru­cial piece of leg­is­la­tion does not seem to be a pri­or­i­ty for the Gov­ern­ment.

Asked if it was a well thought out plan, James said no."We don't have any po­si­tion pa­per on it, all we have is an at­trac­tive promise in their man­i­festo," he said.For the right of re­call to work, James said the con­stituents must have the great­est au­thor­i­ty and not the par­ty."Po­lit­i­cal par­ties have no lo­cus stan­di in the Con­sti­tu­tion and there must be clear and un­am­bigu­ous con­di­tions which would lead to the re­call in the first place, ne­ces­si­tat­ing con­sti­tu­tion re­form.

"One of the prob­lems is that no­body on their side has ar­tic­u­lat­ed a po­si­tion. An­oth­er is that, in the moth­er coun­try that gave us the frame­work for our laws, we don't hear of MPs be­ing re­called."What we have is some­thing called 'res­ig­na­tion', which de­pends on the ma­tu­ri­ty of the po­lit­i­cal cul­ture–the politi­cian, the par­ty, the con­stituen­cy, the coun­try at large, and evolv­ing prac­tice," James said.

If im­ple­ment­ed, James con­tend­ed the right to re­call would im­prove the pol­i­tics of rep­re­sen­ta­tion, as well as the prac­tice of gov­ern­ment. He said prop­er leg­is­la­tion must be put in place for the right of re­call to work."Pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion, a vig­i­lant press and vi­brant self-gov­ern­ing con­stituen­cies should be suf­fi­cient to pre­vent abuse," James not­ed.

Ra­goonath: Right to re­call draft­ed to catch vot­ers

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath al­so agreed that the right to re­call can func­tion if there is con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form."I am not see­ing the kind of progress I ex­pect­ed so far. We are just wait­ing, but we were sup­posed to have some­thing on the con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form by the end of this year," Ra­goonath said.He said when the man­i­festo was draft­ed, the right of re­call was not thought out care­ful­ly.

"It was draft­ed in a hur­ry so they could catch the vot­ers in time for the elec­tion date. It was some­thing the peo­ple asked for a long time. It will make MPs more re­spon­sive and once you put the prop­er mech­a­nisms, it can work," Ra­goonath said.

Bas­deo: It should not beused to desta­balise a govt

UWI's lec­tur­er in pol­i­tics, Dr Maukesh Bas­deo said the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion must play a fun­da­men­tal part if the right to re­call has to work ef­fec­tive­ly."This was dis­cussed in the last round of con­sti­tu­tion­al con­sul­ta­tion so it should be forth­com­ing," Bas­deo said.He said spe­cif­ic mea­sures must be put in place to en­sure that the right to re­call is not used to desta­bilise a gov­ern­ment or par­ty.

"The right to re­call must be ex­er­cised by vot­ers be­cause the Con­sti­tu­tion does not recog­nise par­ty groups," Bas­deo said.He said framers of the Con­sti­tu­tion should look at dif­fer­ent mod­els in oth­er coun­tries and de­cide what could work in T&T.

Ra­mad­har: Con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form re­port in De­cem­ber

Chair­man of the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form Com­mis­sion and Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs, Prakash Ra­mad­har says con­sul­ta­tions on con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form have been com­plet­ed and cit­i­zens will see a re­port at the end of this year.

"We ex­pect to have the re­port con­clud­ed and put in the pub­lic space with­in the next cou­ple months, then it will be tak­en for leg­isla­tive draft­ing to be tak­en to Par­lia­ment," Ra­mad­har said. Asked why the right to re­call was tak­ing so long to be im­ple­ment­ed, Ra­mad­har said it would be dan­ger­ous to im­ple­ment it on its own with­out first en­gag­ing in broad­er re­form of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

"It would be dan­ger­ous to im­ple­ment the right of re­call in the present con­struct be­cause you may have an MP who may not have the favour of min­is­ters and so can­not de­liv­er. In this coun­try where there are mar­gin­al seats, you have to be care­ful," Ra­mad­har said.

He said $20 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed to com­plete the con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form con­sul­ta­tions, yet on­ly $6 mil­lion has been spent so far.

"The en­tire process will be com­plet­ed at less than $10 mil­lion. I take pride in this be­cause I have giv­en a com­mit­ment to work to­wards re­form­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion," Ra­mad­har said. He al­so de­nied Pan­day's ac­cu­sa­tions that the con­sul­ta­tions were a waste of time be­cause peo­ple were giv­en on­ly three min­utes to speak."We tried to en­sure that every­one had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard. In most cas­es, peo­ple went be­yond three min­utes and we didn't stop them."

Ra­mad­har said peo­ple with length­i­er con­tri­bu­tions had the op­por­tu­ni­ty of putting it in writ­ing. "They could e-mail it or post it. We al­so record­ed all the oral pre­sen­ta­tions," he added.

"Many of those sub­mis­sions have been of im­pres­sive qual­i­ty, depth and wis­dom. Is­sues which were promised in the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship man­i­festo, such as fixed elec­tion dates, ref­er­en­dum and term lim­its for the Prime Min­is­ter have of­ten been men­tioned. How­ev­er, the wis­dom and thought­ful­ness of the peo­ple of T&T has brought out com­ments on a wide range of oth­er themes as well, such as the rights of first peo­ples, chil­dren's rights, the need to con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly pro­tect the en­vi­ron­ment for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions, the rights of the dif­fer­ent­ly-abled and pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion."

Say­ing the na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tions em­braces true democ­ra­cy, Ra­mad­har said, "rather than bring­ing a draft doc­u­ment to the peo­ple for com­ment, we have gone to the peo­ple di­rect­ly, seek­ing to cre­ate a new con­sti­tu­tion which comes from the peo­ple them­selves, and serves to en­sure their rights, their lib­er­ty and their hap­pi­ness."

Ef­forts to con­tact Per­sad-Bisses­sar for com­ment proved fu­tile. How­ev­er, leader of gov­ern­ment busi­ness Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said the right of re­call will be im­ple­ment­ed as part of the Gov­ern­ment's com­pre­hen­sive con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form pack­age.