Prof Hamid Ghany

The re­cent un­veil­ing of con­sti­tu­tion re­form as a po­lit­i­cal agen­da item with a tar­get date for a June con­sul­ta­tion has come at a time when the most fun­da­men­tal con­sti­tu­tion re­form item on the na­tion­al agen­da re­mains in a state of lim­bo. That item is of course the is­sue of To­ba­go au­ton­o­my.

There was great anx­i­ety to set­tle this mat­ter in 2021 af­ter the 6-6 tie in the THA elec­tions of Jan­u­ary 2021 and the mo­men­tum rose in 2021 when the ac­tu­al leg­is­la­tion came to Par­lia­ment be­fore the Ju­ly-Au­gust par­lia­men­tary re­cess and then came to a screech­ing halt up­on the re­sump­tion of the Par­lia­ment af­ter its pro­ro­ga­tion in Sep­tem­ber 2021 in time for the bud­get.

The is­sue of au­ton­o­my played a ma­jor part in the elec­tion cam­paign of the PNM for the De­cem­ber 2021 THA elec­tions. There was hope that au­ton­o­my would have been the tiebreak­er when the num­ber of seats was in­creased from 12 to 15. Nat­u­ral­ly, this was done to match the fact that the au­ton­o­my leg­is­la­tion catered for 15 seats for the THA.

In De­cem­ber 2021, the PNM lost the THA elec­tions and that was the end of the au­ton­o­my de­bate as the PNM were now in the op­po­si­tion mi­nor­i­ty in To­ba­go—a fate that they had not suf­fered since at­tain­ing the ma­jor­i­ty in the THA in 2001 with the com­pli­ments of the UNC split­ting NAR votes on the is­land in the 2001 THA elec­tions.

With the death of Ho­choy Charles on De­cem­ber 31 in­stant, a com­mit­ment was made by Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley at his fu­ner­al to have the two bills cur­rent­ly ly­ing on the ta­ble of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives go for­ward this year.

Guardian Me­dia re­port­ed on Jan­u­ary 5 in­stant that Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley said: “The peo­ple of To­ba­go can­not and will not get any­thing called self-gov­ern­ment or any­thing of that mat­ter which in­volved the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go with­out the in­volve­ment of the peo­ple of Trinidad.”

With so much work hav­ing al­ready been done on the two bills, the Prime Min­is­ter sug­gest­ed that Trinidad will now have a say on the way for­ward.

One does not know if that means that the con­sti­tu­tion re­form com­mit­tee that has been formed will in­clude the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my mat­ter in their terms of ref­er­ence or whether the two bills will not form part of their de­lib­er­a­tions.

Con­sti­tu­tion re­form has had a mixed his­to­ry in T&T as the ab­sence of any groundswell of opin­ion dri­ving it is dis­con­nect­ed from what po­lit­i­cal elites may de­sire to see im­ple­ment­ed. The tor­tu­ous strug­gle for To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my has al­ways found it­self in­ter­twined with elec­tions.

In 1980, there was the first THA elec­tions af­ter its cre­ation. In 1996, there was the THA elec­tions af­ter its re­con­struc­tion. In 2013, there was the THA elec­tions right af­ter the un­veil­ing of the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship plan for a re­formed THA which went nowhere af­ter the PNM won all 12 seats in that elec­tion.

In June 2021, af­ter the de­bate on the au­ton­o­my bills com­menced in the Par­lia­ment, there was an­oth­er elec­tion in De­cem­ber. Noth­ing hap­pened af­ter the PNM lost con­trol of the THA.

The lat­est bills that have been ly­ing idle on the par­lia­men­tary ta­ble since 2021 may be moved for­ward in mem­o­ry of Ho­choy Charles af­ter in­put from “the peo­ple of Trinidad” to quote the Prime Min­is­ter. Or they may be in­clud­ed in the for­mu­la­tion of the terms of ref­er­ence for con­sti­tu­tion re­form by the new com­mit­tee.

Whichev­er way it goes, Par­lia­ment will go in­to re­cess in Ju­ly and Au­gust. There will be the manda­to­ry con­sid­er­a­tion of the na­tion­al bud­get in Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber. Par­lia­ment will take a break in No­vem­ber af­ter the bud­get and De­cem­ber will be a mixed bag of par­lia­men­tary busi­ness. By that time, the coun­try will be on the verge of an elec­tion year, both for the na­tion­al Par­lia­ment and for the THA.

A plan will ob­vi­ous­ly emerge and that will run along­side the ever-grow­ing crime con­cerns for which con­sti­tu­tion re­form may be a use­ful dis­trac­tion. The Gov­ern­ment knows that it does not have the spe­cial ma­jori­ties nec­es­sary for any changes (oth­er than sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty ones) to be made to the Con­sti­tu­tion. It will have to seek con­sen­sus with the UNC if any re­forms are to pro­ceed.

The on­ly live con­sti­tu­tion re­form mat­ter on the ta­ble is the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my bills and the pol­i­tics sur­round­ing those bills was orig­i­nal­ly de­signed to bait the UNC Op­po­si­tion in­to op­pos­ing them. So far there is no in­di­ca­tion as to which way the Op­po­si­tion will vote as the com­mit­tee stage has not been com­plet­ed.

What will the Gov­ern­ment do if the Op­po­si­tion sup­ports their fi­nal pro­pos­als for To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my?  

Prof Hamid Ghany is a Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI.