Bavi­ta Gopaulchan

A Com­mis­sion of En­quiry is the most ap­pro­pri­ate way to probe the Paria tragedy which left four divers dead but the mem­bers must not be rushed.

This is the view of Se­nior Coun­sel Avory Sinanan fol­low­ing an an­nounce­ment by the Prime Min­is­ter that the five-per­son in­ves­tiga­tive com­mit­tee ap­point­ed by Gov­ern­ment had been scrapped in favour of a CoE.

The com­mit­tee was named last Thurs­day and had not yet start­ed its work.

How­ev­er, af­ter sting­ing crit­i­cism from the op­po­si­tion, mem­ber Eu­gene Tiah bowed out.

Hours lat­er, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, speak­ing at an in­stall­ment of ‘Con­ver­sa­tions with the Prime Min­is­ter’ on Tues­day night, re­vealed the com­mit­tee will now be re­placed with a three-mem­ber Com­mis­sion of En­quiry.

“The pop­u­la­tion has been so riled up in­to not ac­cept­ing any work that it would have done it is a waste of time now,” Row­ley said.

Ac­cord­ing to Sinanan, “Un­der the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry Act, the com­mis­sion has the right to call for wit­ness­es, doc­u­ments, sub­poe­na wit­ness­es and make rec­om­men­da­tions not on­ly lim­it­ed to cul­pa­bil­i­ty but make strong rec­om­men­da­tions on what should be done to avoid a fur­ther oc­cur­rence of the in­ci­dent.”

He said that an in­ves­tiga­tive com­mit­tee, ap­point­ed by the Gov­ern­ment, has no pow­ers of co­er­cion and on­ly re­ports to the Gov­ern­ment.

He said it is up to the Gov­ern­ment to de­cide whether to make the doc­u­ment pub­lic.

He fur­ther ex­plained that a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry is in­stalled by the Pres­i­dent, on her own vo­li­tion or on the ad­vice of the Prime Min­is­ter, and has a statu­to­ry oblig­a­tion. The com­mis­sion’s find­ings are put to the pub­lic and the Gov­ern­ment.

Re­spond­ing to the de­ci­sion, Op­po­si­tion chief whip David Lee told Guardian Me­dia he was sur­prised that Row­ley heed­ed their call.

“The same speed he said it, there should be some alacrity with ini­ti­at­ing this com­mis­sion so that the pub­lic and the fam­i­lies could feel that jus­tice is be­ing served,” Lee said.

The work of a com­mis­sion can go on for months or even years and could cost tax­pay­ers mil­lions of dol­lars.

How­ev­er, Sinanan said it is im­por­tant that the com­mis­sion gets time to do its work and each mem­ber has ex­pe­ri­ence in the en­er­gy and ma­rine sec­tors.

“I un­der­stand that the fam­i­ly and so on will want quick and very ex­pe­di­tious res­o­lu­tions to the find­ings but at the same time the is­sue goes be­yond the fam­i­lies. It is some­thing that af­fects the coun­try gen­er­al­ly be­cause that is an as­set of the coun­try that will con­tin­ue to op­er­ate and so you’ll want the fullest pos­si­ble in­ves­ti­ga­tion in terms of the ev­i­dence and the rec­om­men­da­tions,” he said.

Lee said jus­tice should be served one way or the oth­er.

“The TTPS has to in­ves­ti­gate that mat­ter sep­a­rate­ly and apart from the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry, so that does not negate the fam­i­lies get­ting jus­tice,” he said.

Sinanan al­so ad­vised both the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion to keep pol­i­tics out of the mat­ter.

“This was a na­tion­al tragedy in which lives were lost. The politi­cians ought to re­al­ly put it be­yond the po­lit­i­cal de­bate and come to­geth­er and see what re­al­ly is at the core or caused this prob­lem, what are the rec­om­men­da­tions for it to be solved in the fu­ture and the par­ties cul­pa­ble,” he said.

“We have a cul­ture in Trinidad and To­ba­go of not act­ing on re­ports even though we ap­point a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry, that is re­al­ly to as­suage the na­tion­al con­cern that a par­tic­u­lar in­ci­dent gen­er­ates like a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the (1990 at­tempt­ed) coup and so on but noth­ing has come out of it,” he added.

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