There is a sense of the un­re­al about the pol­i­tics and ad­min­is­tra­tion of the State of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The Gov­ern­ment sad­dles Her Ex­cel­len­cy, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, al­most be­fore the ink dries on her let­ter of ap­point­ment, with a list of at­tor­neys to be award­ed the ti­tle of se­nior coun­sel. Among the 18 are her hus­band and broth­er. Ac­cord­ing to Her Ex­cel­len­cy’s con­sti­tu­tion­al re­mit, she has no say in the mat­ter.

The Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, a for­mer Prime Min­is­ter, ful­ly aware of who makes the de­ci­sion to ap­point SCs, calls the Pres­i­dent “shame­less” for al­leged nepo­tism. Un­doubt­ed­ly, the ob­jec­tive is to seek to un­der­mine the moral au­thor­i­ty of the Pres­i­dent, who she has sworn against.

The coun­try is thrown in­to tur­moil with al­le­ga­tions and coun­ters. Noth­ing is new about the al­leged po­lit­i­cal-plus bias of such awards. Both Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ments have done the same; so too did the one-term Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion gov­ern­ment.

In­flu­en­tial in­di­vid­u­als and sec­tions of the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty com­plain that the Gov­ern­ment, in the per­son of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Amour, who has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to se­lect the per­sons for “silk” and rec­om­mend them to his Prime Min­is­ter, has not con­sult­ed. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al claims he did not re­ceive pos­i­tive re­spons­es to his in­vi­ta­tions.

In­evitably, the cry is raised for con­sti­tu­tion­al change to place the pow­er of sep­a­rat­ing a few at­tor­neys at the top of their pro­fes­sion from the rest, away from po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence. Log­i­cal! But we have heard it all be­fore.

When in op­po­si­tion, the par­ty and its sup­port­ers scream for change; when in gov­ern­ment, the rul­ing par­ty wants the sta­tus quo pre­served to en­joy the ben­e­fits for its mem­bers and sup­port­ers.

Above the din, there are a few very deep dis­lo­cat­ing and re­source-ab­sorb­ing mat­ters which have the po­ten­tial to re­sult in in­creased ex­pen­di­ture for the ad­min­is­tra­tion and gov­er­nance of the State and le­gal fees to cit­i­zens seek­ing jus­tice.

The award of SC to at­tor­neys al­lows the ben­e­fi­cia­ries to hike their al­ready sub­stan­tial fees both to the State and in­di­vid­u­als. Go­ing back ten years and more, an­nu­al pay­ments to SCs and oth­ers have been count­ed in the hun­dreds of mil­lions. The al­le­ga­tions by both sides are that at­tor­neys favoured with gov­ern­ment work are par­ty mem­bers. The fur­ther in­sin­u­a­tion is that with such prof­itable briefs, the ben­e­fi­cia­ries show their grat­i­tude to the par­ty.

On the al­le­ga­tions that many such awards of the ex­pen­sive ‘silk’, made on the ba­sis not of com­pe­tence but on favouritism, means that the state and the in­di­vid­u­als pay­ing for the ser­vices of the SCs do not nec­es­sar­i­ly re­ceive the ben­e­fits of greater com­pe­tence in the con­test of their cas­es in court.

More­over, through the sys­tem as at­tained now, there is the fur­ther­ance of the eth­ic of cor­rup­tion in the so­ci­ety seed­ed at the high­est lev­els of the Gov­ern­ment. The ob­vi­ous self-serv­ing state­ments in the con­tentions fur­ther di­min­ish pub­lic trust in pol­i­tics and gov­ern­ment.

Every­one shouts about the heavy price paid for the State and so­ci­ety to drag the colo­nial ball and chain be­queathed by the British. In­evitably though, nei­ther par­ty-gov­ern­ment is pre­pared to for­go the ben­e­fits en­joyed be­cause of the 60-year-old con­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ments.