KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As many pub­lic of­fi­cials an­tic­i­pate the pomp of to­day’s Na­tion­al Awards cer­e­mo­ny, there was dis­qui­et among judges whom Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo left off her guest list.

On­ly Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, who heads the Na­tion­al Awards Com­mit­tee, will rep­re­sent the Ju­di­cia­ry. Pres­i­dent’s House usu­al­ly sends in­vi­ta­tions to the Ju­di­cia­ry, and its pro­to­col of­fi­cer dis­trib­utes them to judges, re­quest­ing their and their spouse’s at­ten­dance. How­ev­er, judges lat­er learnt that Pres­i­dent’s House had no space to ac­com­mo­date them.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Ad­vis­er to Kan­ga­loo, Cheryl Lala, ex­plained there are space con­straints as the cer­e­mo­ny re­turns to Pres­i­dent’s House with a guest list of just over 300.

“It is a sim­ple mat­ter of space con­straints. The awards, this year, are be­ing held back at Pres­i­dent’s House, which can ac­com­mo­date a lim­it­ed num­ber of peo­ple. There is noth­ing sin­is­ter. It is just that we can­not ac­com­mo­date as many peo­ple as be­fore,” Lala said.

“The peo­ple re­ceiv­ing the Na­tion­al Awards are who Her Ex­cel­len­cy wants to fo­cus on and they are the guest of ho­n­our. Each is en­ti­tled to two guests.”

A se­nior judge told Sun­day Guardian that since Re­pub­lic Day awards cer­e­monies be­gan, it was tra­di­tion for the Pres­i­dent to in­vite judges, ex­cept dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. In 2020, for­mer pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes called off the awards due to COVID-19, and 2021 saw a small cer­e­mo­ny at the Pres­i­dent’s House as the pan­dem­ic con­tin­ued with Weekes, Archie, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and the awardees present.

The 2022 awards cer­e­mo­ny was at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts in Port-of-Spain.

“Oth­er than the Chief Jus­tice, no Supreme Court or Court of Ap­peal judge was in­vit­ed this year. It is a hun­dred mil­lion dol­lar tax pay­er fund­ed Pres­i­dent’s House, where in the past, Pres­i­dent (Noor) Has­sanali and for some time Pres­i­dent (George) Richards con­duct­ed the Na­tion­al Awards cer­e­mo­ny on the grounds of Pres­i­dent’s House and in­vit­ed the Ju­di­cia­ry,” the judge said.

An­oth­er found the snub ridicu­lous, say­ing that the Supreme Court was an arm of the State, not­ing that on­ly Court of Ap­peal judges got in­vit­ed to the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the new par­lia­men­tary term re­cent­ly.

“How can space be an is­sue? There is no need for mem­bers of the so­cial cir­cuit to be in­vit­ed.”

An­oth­er judge added that the ho­n­our of re­ceiv­ing a na­tion­al award height­ens when done in the pres­ence of all arms of State. 

That is why the Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter and Chief Jus­tice are on the stage. Awardees will most like­ly ap­pre­ci­ate the sig­nif­i­cance of their achieve­ment when they stand be­fore all mem­bers of the leg­isla­tive arm, ex­ec­u­tive and Ju­di­cia­ry. It ap­pears that judges are be­ing rel­e­gat­ed in­to the realm of in­signif­i­cance, and the Chief Jus­tice is silent.”

Judges said the is­sue was not about at­ten­dance, but the im­pres­sion con­veyed to so­ci­ety and awardees. It sends a mes­sage that judges are no longer an in­te­gral part of the fab­ric of T&T. There was con­cern about whether there is a con­cert­ed at­tempt to un­der­mine the im­por­tance to which the Ju­di­cia­ry should be viewed and held.

The judges ar­gued that they ranked 12 and 13 in the Ta­ble of Prece­dence, above the Sen­ate and House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, but the Sen­a­tors and MPs got in­vit­ed.

“This is a func­tion host­ed by the Pres­i­dent. It is not your par­ty; it is an of­fi­cial state func­tion, so you should ob­serve the or­der of prece­dence. It is in­cum­bent on the of­fice­hold­er to make the arrange­ments to cater for all peo­ple to at­tend based on their of­fices. It is not a po­lit­i­cal or par­ty event,” an­oth­er judge said.

Re­spond­ing to this, Lala said Kan­ga­loo pre­pares the guest lists, and she could not speak about prece­dence. Lala said Kan­ga­loo want­ed the cer­e­mo­ny back at the Pres­i­dent’s House as its his­tor­i­cal home.