As the is­sue of con­sti­tu­tion re­form moves to­wards its cli­max with a ma­jor pub­lic event card­ed for June and al­so be­ing in the month when the West In­di­an Fed­er­a­tion came to an end in 1962, which opened the door to in­di­vid­ual na­tion-state in­de­pen­dence, it is time­ly to have an un­der­stand­ing of the per­sis­tence of the West­min­ster-White­hall mod­el that we cur­rent­ly have.

The his­tor­i­cal an­tecedents of the Com­mon­wealth Caribbean are such that we all emerged out of a British colo­nial past in which the West­min­ster mod­el was the on­ly mod­el that was known and revered. 

The per­sis­tence of the West­min­ster-White­hall mod­el in the Com­mon­wealth Caribbean to­day has been based on a his­to­ry of al­le­giance to the British Crown. This can best be seen his­tor­i­cal­ly when, at the end of the Con­fer­ence on the Clos­er As­so­ci­a­tion of the British West In­di­an Colonies, held in Mon­tego Bay in Sep­tem­ber 1947, con­vened by then sec­re­tary of state for the colonies, Arthur Creech-Jones, to dis­cuss the top­ic of West In­di­an fed­er­a­tion, the fol­low­ing res­o­lu­tion was unan­i­mous­ly passed:

“16. Mr H A Cuke, OBE of Bar­ba­dos, then asked per­mis­sion, as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the old­est of the British Caribbean Colonies, to move the fol­low­ing res­o­lu­tion, which was sec­ond­ed by Mr F A Pix­ley of Ja­maica, as mem­bers of the Con­fer­ence ris­ing to their feet while record­ing their unan­i­mous agree­ment:

RES­O­LU­TION 15 RE­SOLVED:

That this con­fer­ence humbly af­firms its loy­al­ty and al­le­giance to the Per­son and Throne of His Most Gra­cious Majesty King George the Sixth, and that the terms of this res­o­lu­tion be con­veyed to the Sec­re­tary of State for the Colonies for trans­mis­sion to His Majesty. (Cm­nd, 7291/1948).

It was this al­le­giance and loy­al­ty to the British Crown that per­vad­ed the con­sti­tu­tion­al dis­cus­sions for a Fed­er­a­tion of the West In­dies in 1947 that has ex­ist­ed in the Com­mon­wealth Caribbean for over 75 years that ex­plains the per­sis­tence of the West­min­ster-White­hall mod­el. 

In lat­er years in two of the British West In­di­an colonies, the po­lit­i­cal thought of two promi­nent po­lit­i­cal lead­ers in T&T and Ja­maica made it ap­par­ent that not much had changed.

In an ad­dress to a pub­lic meet­ing on Ju­ly 19, 1955, about 14 months be­fore he be­came Chief Min­is­ter, in Port-of-Spain, Er­ic Williams had this to say:

“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.” (Er­ic Williams, Con­sti­tu­tion Re­form in Trinidad and To­ba­go: Teach­ers’ Ed­u­ca­tion­al and Cul­tur­al As­so­ci­a­tion, Pub­lic Af­fairs Pam­phlet No 2, 1955, p 30.)

He went fur­ther in the same meet­ing to re­in­force this point when he said:

“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.” (p 30).

These com­ments by Williams laid the con­sti­tu­tion­al foun­da­tion for the sys­tem of gov­ern­ment that we would adopt in 1962 at in­de­pen­dence. His man­ner of think­ing can be con­trast­ed with that of his col­league Pre­mier in Ja­maica, Nor­man Man­ley, who had this to say in the Ja­maican House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Jan­u­ary 1962: 

“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, in­cor­po­rate them in­to our be­ing, and turn them to our own use as part of the her­itage we are not ashamed of.” (Nor­man Man­ley, Pro­ceed­ings of the Ja­maican House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives 1961–62, Jan­u­ary 24, 1962, p 766).

In many re­spects, both of these com­ments rep­re­sent the vir­tu­al DNA of con­sti­tu­tion­al de­vel­op­ment in the Com­mon­wealth Caribbean, ei­ther as suit­ably im­port­ed or colo­nial­ly evolved sys­tems.

Any de­vi­a­tion from this trend would in­volve the adop­tion of a pres­i­den­tial mod­el, which would de­part from the par­lia­men­tary tra­di­tions of West­min­ster, which are hard­wired in­to the psy­ches of the fi­nanciers, the po­lit­i­cal class, the me­dia, and the gen­er­al pub­lic. 

Oth­er than Guyana, no oth­er coun­try among the oth­er eleven in­de­pen­dent coun­tries of the Com­mon­wealth Caribbean has adopt­ed a pres­i­den­tial mod­el as part of its con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.

At best, cos­met­ic change is like­ly to per­sist if gov­ern­ment-op­po­si­tion con­sen­sus is achieved.

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.