Whilst for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day fa­mous­ly said that pol­i­tics has a moral­i­ty of its own, build­ing and main­tain­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al democ­ra­cy is found­ed on a few ba­sic prin­ci­ples and a com­mit­ment to main­tain­ing those prin­ci­ples by more than mere lip ser­vice.

These prin­ci­ples are sum­marised as fol­lows: a body of laws ap­plied fair­ly and con­sis­tent­ly, and to which every­one, in­clud­ing gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, is sub­ject.

Pub­lic trust and so­cial co­he­sion in a di­verse so­ci­ety are main­tained through trans­par­ent and re­spon­si­ble gov­er­nance. This de­pends on fol­low­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al rules, ju­di­cial in­de­pen­dence and an in­de­pen­dent and pro­fes­sion­al pub­lic ser­vice.

Added to these is the need for re­spon­si­ble fis­cal pol­i­cy and sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic man­age­ment.

It is im­por­tant to enu­mer­ate these core val­ues, giv­en the in­tense de­bate on sev­er­al top­ics over the last few weeks. These in­clude cit­i­zens’ rights dur­ing a state of emer­gency, di­vi­sive race talk, racial stereo­typ­ing, an in­di­vid­ual’s right to pri­va­cy, the po­ten­tial abuse of state pow­er and non-dis­clo­sure of pub­lic in­for­ma­tion.

A record­ing leaked in­to the pub­lic do­main fea­tures a pri­vate tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion be­tween Star Sab­ga and her niece Genevieve Hadeed. This con­ver­sa­tion was pur­port­ed to have sparked a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion and the sub­se­quent de­ten­tion of three in­di­vid­u­als.

No one has tak­en re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the record­ing or its le­gal­i­ty. The TTPS has launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion to de­ter­mine the source of the leak. This pre­sup­pos­es there is a record­ing and its cu­ra­tion and dis­sem­i­na­tion can be traced.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie de­fend­ed le­gal in­ter­cep­tion, in­di­cat­ing that there are safe­guards and cau­tion­ing the pub­lic against jump­ing to con­clu­sions about the source of the leak, not­ing that mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy en­abled ex­ter­nal ac­tors to con­duct in­ter­cep­tion.

The Prime Min­is­ter main­tains that law-abid­ing cit­i­zens should not wor­ry about state in­ter­cep­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

She had told Par­lia­ment in No­vem­ber 2010 that the Se­cu­ri­ty In­tel­li­gence Agency (SIA) had op­er­at­ed for years in­ter­cept­ing emails and phone calls with­out prop­er le­gal au­thor­i­ty.

The Se­cu­ri­ty In­tel­li­gence Agency (SIA) was dis­man­tled and re­struc­tured fol­low­ing a mas­sive wire­tap­ping and hir­ing scan­dal in late 2010 and ear­ly 2011.

The coun­try faces se­ri­ous chal­lenges.

The crime sit­u­a­tion is a na­tion­al con­cern, and it is clear that the var­i­ous states of emer­gency are lit­tle more than a plas­ter.

The eco­nom­ic and fi­nan­cial chal­lenges are se­vere and re­quire a change in pol­i­cy and ap­proach to the en­er­gy sec­tor to reignite eco­nom­ic growth.

These mat­ters are too im­por­tant to be sac­ri­ficed on the al­tar of per­son­al­i­ties, pol­i­tics and self-in­ter­est.

To para­phrase Bob Mar­ley, we must eman­ci­pate our minds from trib­al po­lit­i­cal di­vi­sions and gov­ern with prin­ci­ple and the un­der­stand­ing that no one is above the law.

Equal­i­ty, eq­ui­ty, and fair­ness must guide the ac­tions of all of us, es­pe­cial­ly our po­lit­i­cal lead­ers