DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment’s re­view of diplo­mat­ic pass­ports con­tin­ues to stir po­lit­i­cal de­bate, with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­firm­ing that for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley will al­so be asked to sur­ren­der his diplo­mat­ic pass­port. Row­ley, who is cur­rent­ly out of the coun­try, said he would re­spond to the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion up­on his re­turn.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s an­nounce­ment came a day af­ter for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young re­vealed he had re­ceived an un­ex­pect­ed call in­struct­ing him to re­turn the diplo­mat­ic pass­port is­sued to him.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the re­view fol­lowed con­cerns raised by T&T’s in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners over the is­suance and pos­si­ble abuse of diplo­mat­ic pass­ports. She said 985 peo­ple cur­rent­ly hold diplo­mat­ic pass­ports, de­spite many no longer meet­ing the cri­te­ria to pos­sess them.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said he saw noth­ing un­usu­al about re­quir­ing for­mer of­fice­hold­ers to re­turn the doc­u­ments.

“My think­ing is, if you are in a job, when you fin­ish the job, you are re­quired to hand in every­thing else that comes with that job. And one of the things that you’re re­quired to hand in, I am as­sum­ing, is if you had a diplo­mat­ic pass­port, you hand it in,” he said.

Ra­goonath al­so sug­gest­ed Young’s re­cent over­seas en­gage­ments may have in­flu­enced the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion.

“And that, I be­lieve, is one of the crit­i­cal things that led to this thing. Be­cause Mr Young went to Venezuela and took pic­tures with Del­cy (Ro­driguez) and who­ev­er else. And then Mr Young went to the US and went to some en­er­gy con­fer­ence and speak­ing as if he’s speak­ing on be­half of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

How­ev­er, for­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne said the pol­i­cy gov­ern­ing diplo­mat­ic pass­ports has al­ways been de­ter­mined by Cab­i­net and can be re­vised at any time.

“I do re­call that dur­ing my tenure as Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, there was the oc­ca­sion­al case of for­mer hold­ers of of­fice who sought to re­tain the diplo­mat­ic pass­ports to which they were pre­vi­ous­ly en­ti­tled. Such cas­es we sought to han­dle with the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­si­tiv­i­ty, out of re­spect for the of­fice that they held and with a view to re­spect­ing the hu­man dig­ni­ty of the in­di­vid­ual and avoid­ing un­due em­bar­rass­ment,” he said.

Browne al­so not­ed that, af­ter the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion, he vol­un­tar­i­ly re­turned his diplo­mat­ic pass­port and was lat­er is­sued an of­fi­cial pass­port in his ca­pac­i­ty as a sen­a­tor.

“It is im­por­tant to al­ways bear in mind that none of the perquisites of of­fice are per­ma­nent,” he said.

Fur­ther­more, Browne ques­tioned the Gov­ern­ment’s as­ser­tion that the pol­i­cy change was prompt­ed by con­cerns from for­eign gov­ern­ments.

“We have no rea­son to be­lieve that this is, in fact, the case and it would not be the first time that the cur­rent UNC has sought to jus­ti­fy its stac­ca­to de­ci­sions on the ba­sis of al­leged over­seas pres­sure,” he said.

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tions am­bas­sador and for­mer op­po­si­tion MP Rod­ney Charles took a dif­fer­ent view, ar­gu­ing that the is­sue re­flect­ed a broad­er pat­tern of for­mer na­tion­al lead­ers be­ing pub­licly di­min­ished af­ter leav­ing of­fice.

Charles said diplo­mat­ic pass­port priv­i­leges should ul­ti­mate­ly be lim­it­ed to for­mer prime min­is­ters and pres­i­dents, but main­tained that any pol­i­cy gov­ern­ing such en­ti­tle­ments should be trans­par­ent, con­sis­tent and in­su­lat­ed from changes in gov­ern­ment.

“What we need is to stream­line the pass­port and oth­er en­ti­tle­ments of PMs and Pres­i­dents and the cir­cum­stances in which they can be re­voked. Rea­sons for re­vo­ca­tion should be ful­ly trans­par­ent, con­sen­su­al­ly de­vel­oped, and across the board for all hold­ers,” he added.

For­mer diplo­mat Razia Ali al­so sup­port­ed a re­view of the sys­tem, say­ing diplo­mat­ic pass­ports were orig­i­nal­ly in­tend­ed on­ly to fa­cil­i­tate of­fi­cial du­ties and that el­i­gi­bil­i­ty had be­come too loose­ly ap­plied over the years.

Ali claimed that Caribbean diplo­mat­ic pass­ports have come un­der in­creased in­ter­na­tion­al scruti­ny be­cause some coun­tries in the re­gion have sold them to peo­ple with crim­i­nal back­grounds or ques­tion­able rep­u­ta­tions.

How­ev­er, she said the long­stand­ing prac­tice of ex­tend­ing cour­tesy diplo­mat­ic pass­ports to for­mer pres­i­dents should con­tin­ue.