The small size and close­ness of fam­i­ly re­la­tion­ships, friends, busi­ness and po­lit­i­cal as­so­ciates in this so­ci­ety con­tin­ue to pose prob­lems for not mere­ly the fair­ness of ac­tions tak­en by state of­fi­cials, but the ap­pear­ance of less than arm’s-length ap­point­ments to crit­i­cal po­si­tions in the state in­sti­tu­tion­al ap­pa­ra­tus.

The re­cent non-re­new­al of the con­tract of for­mer In­dus­tri­al Court pres­i­dent Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix has drawn ac­ri­mo­nious al­le­ga­tions from the Joint Trade Union Move­ment (JTUM) of be­ing a con­spir­a­cy to favour the Gov­ern­ment in pend­ing in­dus­tri­al mat­ters.

The claim by the unions is that the ef­fec­tive re­moval of the for­mer court pres­i­dent by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, the lat­ter hav­ing had a long his­to­ry as a mem­ber and min­is­ter in gov­ern­ments of the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, is to avoid Ms Thomas-Fe­lix from ap­ply­ing her known ca­pac­i­ty for rig­or­ous scruti­ny and fair­ness to rule on cas­es.

Un­der the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act of T&T, it is the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic, “af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the Chief Jus­tice,” who has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and au­thor­i­ty to ap­point the In­dus­tri­al Court pres­i­dent. As de­fined by this coun­try’s first and dis­tin­guished Pres­i­dent, Sir El­lis Clarke, “af­ter con­sul­ta­tion” means, hav­ing in this in­stance con­sult­ed with the Chief Jus­tice, the Pres­i­dent is then free to de­cide up­on her choice of per­son for the job.

The JTUM has al­leged that Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo made the de­ci­sion not to re­new Ms Thomas-Fe­lix’s con­tract as a favour to the Gov­ern­ment which elect­ed her to the po­si­tion of Head of State.

The union body is claim­ing too that the de­ci­sion of the Pres­i­dent to de­ny the for­mer in­cum­bent an­oth­er term al­so favours her Ex­cel­len­cy’s hus­band, the First Gen­tle­man, at­tor­ney Ker­wyn Gar­cia, who is rep­re­sent­ing the Gov­ern­ment in the mat­ters await­ing de­ci­sions of the court.

The framers of the na­tion­al Con­sti­tu­tion de­cid­ed to in­put the Doc­trine of the Sep­a­ra­tion of the Pow­ers of State to avoid the in­ter­fer­ence of the Ex­ec­u­tive in mat­ters in which the Ju­di­cia­ry holds the pow­er. The al­le­ga­tion of the unions is that Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo has found a way to vi­o­late this con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sion.

The pe­ri­od of self-gov­er­nance has pro­vid­ed chal­lenges to the ac­tu­al prac­tice of the stat­ed con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ple. The unions, there­fore, have tak­en what they deem to be a jus­ti­fi­able po­si­tion in al­leg­ing bias in the sidelin­ing of Mrs Thomas-Fe­lix.

But the al­le­ga­tion of bias by the unions can al­so be con­sid­ered an in­jus­tice to the new pres­i­dent of the court, Heather Seale, as it al­leges that she will favour the Gov­ern­ment in her rul­ings.

All of this and oth­er mat­ters in­volv­ing the func­tion­ing of in­sti­tu­tions of the State give a mea­sure of cre­dence to the call by the trade unions for a re-vis­it to the ap­point­ment pro­ce­dures and struc­tures of the In­dus­tri­al Court; the court hav­ing been es­tab­lished in very heat­ed ad­ver­sar­i­al cir­cum­stances of the mid-1960s.

Just to re­mind read­ers, if by chance it’s be­ing tem­porar­i­ly or not suf­fi­cient­ly con­sid­ered, that it mat­ters that the In­dus­tri­al Court is seen as be­ing ca­pa­ble of as­sist­ing to cre­ate a pro­duc­tive and peace­ful en­vi­ron­ment in an un­bi­ased man­ner.