KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

The Na­tion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee is set to host its first of sev­er­al town hall meet­ings on con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, this evening, in San­gre Grande.

Com­mit­tee chair­man Baren­dra Sinanan told Guardian Me­dia that the ses­sions will run through April and the first two weeks in May.

He ex­plained that the plan is to reach all con­stituen­cies, and to lis­ten to what peo­ple think about the Con­sti­tu­tion be­fore sub­mit­ting a re­port to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley by the sec­ond week of June.

Ac­cord­ing to Sinanan, many peo­ple talk about con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form as if it were “a plas­ter for every sore”, when in fact it may not be.

“It's a main is­sue,” he says.  “Ac­tu­al­ly, it's al­so a main gov­er­nance is­sue. Ac­count­abil­i­ty across the board from the top—from the ex­ec­u­tive to the leg­is­la­ture to the ju­di­cia­ry and then most im­por­tant­ly the pub­lic ser­vice. The po­lice ser­vice, any ser­vice you think that is lack­ing, is ac­count­able.”

Mr Sinanan, a for­mer Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, says laws must change to cater for so­ci­etal evo­lu­tion.

He re­vealed that the Na­tion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee ex­am­ined doc­u­ments from past Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form Com­mis­sions and Com­mit­tees, to en­sure they were not rein­vent­ing the wheel.

It al­so has re­ceived over 100 writ­ten sub­mis­sions on the Con­sti­tu­tion and ex­pects more in the com­ing weeks.

But as the Com­mit­tee goes to the pub­lic, it notes there is a seg­ment of the pop­u­la­tion that seems un­in­ter­est­ed in the law and na­tion­al par­tic­i­pa­tion.

“We are tar­get­ing, in par­tic­u­lar, young peo­ple through so­cial me­dia, ask­ing them to get in­volved and con­tribute,” the Com­mit­tee chair­man says.  “We are hop­ing to get a group out of The UWI to come and ex­press their views.”

“Lis­ten, you could lead a horse to wa­ter, but you can­not make it drink,” Sinanan ad­mits. “Ba­si­cal­ly, we are do­ing all we can to alert the pub­lic.”

The cur­rent Con­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go was passed in 1976.