Last Sunday, I quoted two of the founding fathers of the independence movement in the Commonwealth Caribbean, namely Eric Williams and Norman Manley. In 1955, Williams said, “The Colonial Office does not need to examine its second-hand colonial constitutions. It has a constitution at hand, which it can apply immediately to Trinidad and Tobago. That is the British Constitution. Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest to you that the time has come when the British Constitution, suitably modified, can be applied to Trinidad and Tobago. After all, if the British Constitution is good enough for Great Britain, it should be good enough for Trinidad and Tobago.” (Teachers Educational and Cultural Association, Public Affairs Pamphlet No 2, 1955, p 30).
In 1962, Manley said, “Let us not make the mistake of describing as colonial, institutions which are part and parcel of the heritage of this country. If we have any confidence in our own individuality and our own personality we would absorb these things and incorporate them into our being and turn them to our own use as part of the heritage we are not ashamed of.” (Proceedings of the Jamaican House of Representatives 1961-1962, January 24, 1962, p 766).
I have cited these two statements as the DNA of the Commonwealth Caribbean constitutional corpus. The Jamaican Independence Conference at Lancaster House (February 1–9, 1962) and the Trinidad and Tobago Independence Conference at Marlborough House (May 28–June 8, 1962) implemented constitutional structures that represented the British Constitution “suitably modified” and incorporated colonially evolved institutions that were part of our heritage of which “we are not ashamed.”
In T&T, the biggest threat to the parliamentary system took place in 1970 when the Black Power movement led by the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) threatened the status quo by succeeding in accomplishing Afro-Indian unity, which was a clear and present danger to the special interests who depend on such divisiveness to control the political process.
Williams was able to hijack the movement in 1970, adopt their message as his own, and make policy changes in such a way as to permit the parliamentary system to survive. Tactically, he was able to change the message of the PNM at a special convention of the party in November 1970 when he introduced “The Chaguaramas Declaration” as “The People’s Charter Revised”. He was able to call an early general election in May 1971 where the PNM won all the seats because his former Cabinet colleague, ANR Robinson, who had formed the ACDC and joined forces with the DLP led by Vernon Jamadar, declared a no-vote campaign in 1971.
They played into Williams’ hands, and he won all the seats and was able to embark on constitutional reform to make T&T a republic by 1976.
He was able to overcome the threat posed to him by NJAC by banning, since 1969, the ability of the Trinidad-born American Black Power leader, Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture), from returning to the land of his birth. By keeping Carmichael out of T&T, he averted the rise in consciousness of the masses on the streets, which permitted him to take evasive action in concert with foreign powers to survive.
The continuation of the parliamentary system was crucial to the PNM’s survival. His strategy worked. The cosmetic changes of 1976 from a monarchy to a republic were accomplished by making a further “suitably modified” British Constitution that would not challenge the entrenched power structure.
There were other attempts at constitutional reform that went nowhere. The Hyatali Commission Report was submitted in July 1990, just before the attempted coup. The 2009-2010 Patrick Manning proposals for an executive presidency were undermined by opposition within and without the PNM, and he lost office in 2010. The 2014 constitutional amendments by the People’s Partnership government (on term limits for the PM, the right of recall for MPs, and the second ballot run-off election to prevent any MP from being elected with less than 50 per cent of the votes cast) were never submitted to the House of Representatives for the Senate amendments to be ratified by the time Parliament was dissolved in 2015.
So here we are again talking about constitutional reform. Based on the DNA of Williams and Manley, are we reforming something indigenous that belongs to us, or are we merely tinkering? What are we reforming?
Prof Hamid Ghany is Professor of Constitutional Affairs and Parliamentary Studies at The University of the West Indies (UWI). He was also appointed an Honorary Professor of The UWI upon his retirement in October 2021. He continues his research and publications and also does some teaching at The UWI.
