Ken Ali

The Prime Min­is­ter's of­fice has fi­nal­ly re­vealed the au­thors of the Draft Na­tion­al Con­sti­tu­tion. The con­sti­tu­tion drafters are sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, along with for­mer Pres­i­dent Sir El­lis Clarke, aca­d­e­m­ic fig­ures and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly. Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning chaired the round­table team. Apart from Man­ning and Clarke, oth­er con­sti­tu­tion drafters are Trin­i­ty Cross hold­er Taj­mool Ho­sein, Pro­fes­sors Sel­wyn Ryan, John Spence and John la Guerre and Dr Hamid Ghany, Dean of the Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences, St Au­gus­tine. For about three years, the au­thors of sev­er­al drafts of a re­vised con­sti­tu­tion had been the sub­ject of much in­trigue and spec­u­la­tion as the Gov­ern­ment had de­clined to name its au­thors.

But un­der pro­vi­sions of the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act, the drafters, who took part in dis­cus­sions be­tween Sep­tem­ber 2006 and Jan­u­ary 2009, have been made pub­lic.

Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters, Dr Lenny Saith and Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, were al­so on the team, along with Dr Anselm Lon­don, Sec­re­tary of Fi­nance and Plan­ning in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly. John Je­re­mie served on the team un­til his de­par­ture as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, af­ter which he was re­placed by Bridgid An­nisette-George, un­til her res­ig­na­tion. For­mer min­is­ters Camille Robin­son-Reg­is and Chris­tine Sa­hadeo as­sist­ed in draft­ing the con­sti­tu­tion un­til Oc­to­ber 2007. Cur­rent Cab­i­net mem­bers, Pe­ter Tay­lor and Paula Gopee-Scoon, joined the dis­cus­sions in De­cem­ber 2007. The tech­ni­cal team was made up of Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary to the Prime Min­is­ter San­dra Mar­chack; se­nior le­gal ad­vi­sor Nicole Fer­nan­des; law re­form of­fi­cer Sam­raj Har­ri­paul and Thel­ma Nurse of the Prime Min­is­ter's of­fice.

Ryan took part in the round­table dis­cus­sions un­til Oc­to­ber 2008, while Ghany joined in Ju­ly 2008. The names were re­vealed fol­low­ing a re­quest by so­cial ac­tivist, De­vant Ma­haraj. In a let­ter to Ma­haraj, Mar­chack said in 2006, a draft con­sti­tu­tion was pre­pared by Sir El­lis. She ex­plained: "Dur­ing the pe­ri­od, Oc­to­ber 2006 to March 2007, the draft con­sti­tu­tion was the sub­ject of pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion and was pub­lished for pub­lic com­ment, re­sult­ing in writ­ten sub­mis­sions be­ing re­ceived from in­di­vid­u­als and from or­gan­i­sa­tions." Mar­chack said round­table talks took place from Sep­tem­ber 2006 to Jan­u­ary 6, 2009, un­der Man­ning's chair­man­ship. She added: "Aris­ing out of these con­sul­ta­tions and dis­cus­sions, sev­er­al draft work­ing doc­u­ments on con­sti­tu­tion re­form were pre­pared." The fi­nal work­ing doc­u­ment, pre­pared last Jan­u­ary, was laid in Par­lia­ment and pub­lished for pub­lic com­ment.