RYAN BA­CHOO

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

While Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s con­fer­ral with the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ORTT) the day be­fore the Spir­i­tu­al/Shouter Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day hol­i­day left some baf­fled, it is a cus­tom­ary prac­tice for pres­i­dents that is less known.

The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent is­sued a state­ment on Thurs­day night say­ing, “In a sim­ple cer­e­mo­ny at Pres­i­dent’s House yes­ter­day... The ORTT, this coun­try’s high­est Na­tion­al Award, was pre­sent­ed to Her Ex­cel­len­cy by the Ho­n­ourable Chief Jus­tice Mr Ivor Archie.”

It added that the Chief Jus­tice ex­plained dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny that the Pres­i­dent of T&T re­ceives this award by con­ven­tion and by virtue of be­ing the Chan­cel­lor of the Dis­tin­guished So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Or­der to which all Na­tion­al Award re­cip­i­ents be­long.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, as well as Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo’s hus­band, Ker­wyn Gar­cia, were al­so in at­ten­dance at the cer­e­mo­ny.

How­ev­er, ques­tions as to how the new Head of State could re­ceive this ho­n­our less than two weeks in­to of­fice were im­me­di­ate­ly raised in some quar­ters fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day in a bid to clear up the mis­con­cep­tion that has al­so flood­ed so­cial me­dia since Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo re­ceived the award, a for­mer pro­to­col of­fi­cer at­tached to the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, who wished not to be named, as­sured it was stan­dard pro­ce­dure that the Pres­i­dent re­ceives the ORTT.

“She can­not be Chan­cel­lor of the Dis­tin­guished So­ci­ety of T&T and not have the award her­self. It goes way back. Sir El­lis Clarke had the Trin­i­ty Cross. Mr (Noor) Has­sanali had the Trin­i­ty Cross and so the hold­er of the high­est of­fice in the land will have it be­cause as Chan­cel­lor of the Dis­tin­guished So­ci­ety, it’s au­to­mat­ic as Head of State,” the source told Guardian Me­dia.

The source added, “You don’t have to work to earn it like oth­er peo­ple.”

For­mer Sen­ate pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith al­so con­firmed this process.

“The grant­i­ng of the ORTT on the Pres­i­dent af­ter they first be­come in­stalled has been a tra­di­tion­al prac­tice that goes very far back. I know pre­ced­ing pres­i­dents who re­ceived that ho­n­our as a mat­ter of right once they be­come pres­i­dent.”

Some so­cial me­dia users ques­tioned Kan­ga­loo’s con­fer­ral, con­nect­ing it with her ser­vice to the Gov­ern­ment.

How­ev­er, the for­mer pro­to­col of­fi­cer said the Chief Jus­tice mere­ly did what he would have had to do for any Pres­i­dent who as­sumed the of­fice.

“It is not a new oc­cur­rence. It has noth­ing to do with Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo hav­ing been a sen­a­tor and hav­ing had PNM con­nec­tions, it has noth­ing to do with that. She is the Chan­cel­lor of the Dis­tin­guished So­ci­ety,” the source told Guardian Me­dia.

Hamel-Smith added, “I can’t point to any leg­is­la­tion that might in­di­cate that, but that is the con­ven­tion. When you have a con­ven­tion, it is some­thing that de­mo­c­ra­t­ic con­di­tions re­quire that you keep con­sis­tent­ly ap­ply­ing. “Every­thing is not in black and white. Con­ven­tions are some­thing that are passed along and rep­re­sent what peo­ple would un­der­stand to be good prac­tice, and there­fore, there are many oth­er con­ven­tions, which, if we ig­nored them I think peo­ple would be very up­set so be­cause some­thing is a con­ven­tion and not seen in black and white doesn’t make it any less a re­quire­ment than we have in T&T.”

Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo was in­au­gu­rat­ed on March 20 at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, suc­ceed­ing for­mer Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes, who served one term in of­fice. Like her suc­ces­sor, for­mer Pres­i­dent Weekes was al­so con­ferred the ORTT up­on as­sum­ing of­fice.