KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James says Gov­ern­ment took the right ap­proach to the Privy Coun­cil rul­ing which in­val­i­dat­ed its ex­ten­sion of lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

How­ev­er, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist and at­tor­ney at law Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad said Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had no choice as the rul­ing was func­tus of­fi­cio, mean­ing Gov­ern­ment could not ap­peal. She said cit­i­zens would be hap­py with Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions with­in three months.

James said the move by Gov­ern­ment agrees with the Privy Coun­cil judge­ment and lo­cal elec­toral process. He said the Op­po­si­tion did not re­ject it as it would have done the same in that sit­u­a­tion.

“The de­ci­sion of the Privy Coun­cil cried out for that to hap­pen and what Dr Row­ley has done is to work in agree­ment with the de­ci­sion of the Privy Coun­cil, so that was the right de­ci­sion,” he said.

Ram­per­sad said the rul­ing was a vic­to­ry for democ­ra­cy in T&T as there should be elec­tions when they are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due. 

Row­ley re­it­er­at­ed the Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to gain time to roll out lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­forms, but Ram­per­sad said that was not a valid rea­son. She said a counter to Row­ley’s ex­pla­na­tion would be:“Why was it not done be­fore? Why wait un­til the time was up to do this?” 

She said Gov­ern­ment must recog­nise and re­spect elec­tion dates as fail­ure to do so might cre­ate the per­cep­tion that post­pone­ments are po­lit­i­cal gim­micks and strate­gies to de­lay the elec­tions un­til they ap­pear favourable.

“It is to the detri­ment of the Gov­ern­ment in hav­ing de­layed it be­cause the per­cep­tion is that Gov­ern­ment thinks its po­lit­i­cal for­tunes are de­clin­ing, giv­en the THA elec­tions, which is a lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion in To­ba­go. That is equiv­a­lent to our lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions and they got a good spank­ing in 14-1,” Ram­per­sad ex­plained>

“Gov­ern­ment felt the time was not right to call an elec­tion in Trinidad. I think that would be fore­most in the minds of cit­i­zens.”

Last Sun­day, the Op­po­si­tion ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of breach­ing cit­i­zens’ con­sti­tu­tion­al right to choose their rep­re­sen­ta­tives. How­ev­er, Row­ley said the Privy Coun­cil did not cite such a vi­o­la­tion.

James agreed that it was not a con­sti­tu­tion­al breach but point­ed out that it was a le­gal vi­o­la­tion. He said no gov­ern­ment could ex­tend rep­re­sen­ta­tives’ terms for coun­cil­lors and al­der­men that way and based on T&T’s laws, de­lay­ing elec­tions to roll out lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­forms is not a valid rea­son, and Gov­ern­ment should have used its term to com­plete its plans be­fore elec­tions. 

Ram­per­sad said Gov­ern­ment’s use of lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­forms as a suc­cess­ful cam­paign strat­e­gy will de­pend on whether they ben­e­fit peo­ple. On Row­ley’s re­sponse to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ques­tion about the sta­tus of in­cum­bent rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Ram­per­sad won­dered whether, with the move to val­i­date lo­cal gov­ern­ment ac­tiv­i­ty from De­cem­ber 3 and May 18, what would be done about work done af­ter. How­ev­er, she said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ques­tion was moot.

“I un­der­stand the Op­po­si­tion Leader and I think it is on this is­sue of the in­cum­bents and their va­lid­i­ty that she had men­tioned in the Mon­day Night Fo­rum that she would take him to court. I be­lieve that is what she said, so it is a moot ques­tion on whether it is le­gal or it is not le­gal. When you have moot ques­tions like this, you take it to court and let a judge in­ter­pret the law,” she said.

James said he al­so wants to know whether coun­cil­lors and al­der­men re­main in of­fice fol­low­ing the Privy Coun­cil rul­ing.