There has been some movement on longstanding calls for constitutional reform.
An advisory committee, including former House Speakers Barendra Sinanan and Nizam Mohammed, has been mandated by the Government to collect views from the public on constitutional reform and make recommendations for a national consultation in June.
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announced this at yesterday’s post-Cabinet media briefing at Whitehall.
He noted that reform of the Constitution had been a matter for quite some time and it cannot be said that attempts were not made to reform it.
Noting the significant change in 1976, Rowley also noted other efforts, including the appointment by the Patrick Manning administration of the Professor Hamid Ghany Committee to examine an executive president. Under the UNC, there was also the Prakash Ramadhar Committee examining proportional representation.
Yesterday, Rowley advised that in T&T’s 61st year, “Given the number of people who have expressed willingness to see some return to our Constitution, with the hope we can upgrade it, amend it, introduce new points, evaluate some components as the case might be - that now is an appropriate time for us to do that.”
He said it wasn’t the Government or his PNM party taking the lead. He said he had proposed to the Cabinet and received approval for the appointment of an advisory committee, to formulate terms of reference for a national consultation on constitutional reform for T&T to engage citizens, stakeholders and the diaspora in the national consultation.
Rowley detailed the seven-member team headed by Sinanan. He said it comprises experienced people of distinction with a wealth of knowledge representing the diverse ethnic, cultural and religious nature of the society. Team members have agreed to serve.
The Cabinet approved the committee to formulate the terms of reference and bring recommendations back in three months, of its appointment for the promotion and convening of a National Constitutional Conference in June. It will take into consideration the diverse nature of T&T, historical evolution and progress made in nationhood.
The committee will outline parameters for subject matters for debate and for engagement of the widest cross-section of people and bodies representing citizens, including in the diaspora, political parties, NGOs, commercial and religious interests, labour/trade union interests, educators and students to promote meaningful consultations, debate and exchange of opinions, and make recommendations to reform the Constitution.
Rowley stressed the team, which begins work in a couple of weeks, isn’t being asked to craft a Constitution but to facilitate and advance the national discourse on the subject and to be, “the post office into which any and all interested parties, agencies, and organisations will want to put their views.”
Once that’s done in the three months, the team - which will use Public Administration Ministry resources - will be able to collate and distil what they can extract.
“We’ll move to a point where we’ll put some ‘face, bone and muscle’ identification to what exactly we mean by constitutional reform: what needs to be reformed, what the population’s saying should be reformed, what the reform should be, what should come out, go in...That team will collate this national perspective,” the PM said.
“And then we expect to get a document out of that: ‘this is what’s being said by T&T, these are the things that are irking people, the things they expect to be dealt with.’ Then you go to the conference to see how we can codify that in a way that could take us to Parliament intervention.”
He admitted that is where agreements or disagreements will be weighed.
“I know we all are not going to be on the same page or saying the same things as the Constitution does and means different things to different people, so we expect a basket of proposals from people.”
He said he expected very lively debate.
“But at the end result of it, is we gotta to get to a place where we ‘ll say ‘this is what we have agreement on, this what we have majority support for and now, do we have the will to make the changes required.”
Rowley said he hoped the political arena will also be involved.
The Advisory Committee
• CHAIRMAN - Former House Speaker Barendra Sinanan SC (2002- 2010), one-time PNM San Fernando West MP
• Dr Terrence Farrell, former Central Bank governor, economist, and lawyer.
• Ray Sandy - recently retired Tobago House of Assembly chief administrator
• Jacquie Sampson- Meiguel- attorney, recently retired after long distinguished service as Clerk of the House of Representatives
• Winston Rudder - retired permanent secretary, now chairing the Public Service Commission
• Haji Nizam Mohammed - former House Speaker (1987-1991), eminent lawyer, former NAR Tabaquite MP
• Hema Narinesingh - accountant