Over near­ly three decades, her com­port­ment af­fect­ed every­one who passed through Par­lia­ment, from pres­i­dents to clean­ing at­ten­dants, prime min­is­ters to cler­i­cal work­ers, pro­fes­sion­als to ap­pren­tices, par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and dig­ni­taries.

The now re­tired Mrs Jacqui Samp­son-Meiguel, Clerk of the House of Par­lia­ment and the prin­ci­pal ad­vis­er to MPs and com­mit­tees on mat­ters of par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure, nev­er con­veyed par­ti­san­ship, even in the face of keen po­lit­i­cal ri­val­ry. If she had an an­tag­o­nist, it was medi­oc­rity. Her calm, poised, and con­fi­dent dis­po­si­tion shone through in the face of heat­ed and ac­ri­mo­nious de­bates and an elec­tion dead heat. It pre­vailed when she chaired the con­tentious elec­tion for a Speak­er of the House in 2002, just af­ter the 2001 cliff-hang­er gen­er­al elec­tion. In the De­cem­ber 2001 elec­tion, the PNM and UNC had tied 18/18, and the late pres­i­dent Arthur N Robin­son, cit­ing “moral and spir­i­tu­al val­ues,” de­clared the late Hon Patrick Man­ning Prime Min­is­ter. Po­lit­i­cal block and tack­le then played out in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to elect the Speak­er of the House. The Con­sti­tu­tion man­dates that no busi­ness can hap­pen with­out a Speak­er, so with the eyes of the coun­try on the pro­ceed­ings, Mrs Samp­son-Meiguel deft­ly steered seething con­tenders through the nom­i­na­tion process. Mr Baren­dra Sinanan was elect­ed Speak­er.

Her stan­dard of ex­cel­lence was es­poused by every em­ploy­ee, which is quite ob­serv­able to­day from the time you en­ter the Red House. You don’t see a grumpy face. Cour­te­ous­ness, warm greet­ings, and gen­uine will­ing­ness to guide mem­bers are ha­bit­u­al. If un­der pres­sure, as they con­stant­ly are, the em­ploy­ees don’t show it, of­ten work­ing from 8 am to af­ter mid­night. Or­der pa­pers, com­mit­tee doc­u­ments, pub­lic re­ports for House and Sen­ate ses­sions and com­mit­tees, all are ready on time, meet­ing any and every re­quire­ment that may arise. Yet you feel no anx­ious buzzing and flur­ries. In their work, there’s no room for er­ror in the ad­vice and re­spons­es they must give to par­lia­men­tar­i­ans. There are dai­ly de­mands for re­search in­for­ma­tion that mem­bers re­ly up­on for law-mak­ing—all si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly re­quest­ing var­i­ous da­ta, cus­tomised. We see the live and record­ed par­lia­men­tary de­bates and com­mit­tee meet­ings of the politi­cians and sen­a­tors. We don’t see Par­lia­ment’s en­gine room, its wheels turn­ing with ex­cep­tion­al ef­fi­cien­cy, vir­tu­al­ly 24/7. Par­lia­ment’s staff must sac­ri­fice many hours of per­son­al and fam­i­ly time. Choos­ing a par­lia­men­tary ca­reer means for­go­ing high­er-lev­el op­por­tu­ni­ties in pub­lic ser­vice de­part­ments for the in­trin­sic re­wards of the job, rather than su­pe­ri­or po­si­tions and mon­e­tary ben­e­fits else­where.

Jacqui’s lead­er­ship is now leg­endary, un­der­scor­ing the tru­ism that the dif­fer­ence be­tween high-per­form­ing in­sti­tu­tions and mediocre ones is un­ques­tion­ably made by the leader. She set high ex­pec­ta­tions. Her lead­er­ship skills ac­count for Par­lia­ment’s re­mark­able op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy. She nav­i­gat­ed bu­reau­crat­ic sys­tems with firm and re­spect­ful flair, re­source­ful­ly find­ing so­lu­tions to rigid and out­dat­ed pub­lic ser­vice hu­man re­source rules and reg­u­la­tions. She built a strong man­age­ment team, draw­ing on the ideas, tal­ent, and en­thu­si­asm of the em­ploy­ees. We of­ten hear pub­lic sec­tor of­fi­cers lament­ing the lack of bud­get and staff as rea­sons for non-per­for­mance. Not the en­er­getic Clerk of the House. She strate­gised cre­ative­ly, opt­ing for re­source­ful­ness, not ex­cus­es. Adept at man­ag­ing po­lit­i­cal ex­i­gen­cies and de­flect­ing no short­age of par­ti­san ac­tivism, she won the con­fi­dence and re­spect of the near­ly 600 par­lia­men­tar­i­ans who sought her coun­sel, giv­en her wis­dom, im­par­tial­i­ty, trust­wor­thi­ness, and con­sci­en­tious­ness.

The heart-warm­ing re­tire­ment func­tion in her ho­n­our last Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 22, was in­spir­ing. In these times of neg­a­tiv­i­ty, fear of crime, and dis­en­chant­ment with pol­i­tics, it was up­lift­ing to wit­ness the trib­utes to her ci­vil­i­ty and pro­fes­sion­al­ism, ar­tic­u­lat­ed by The Pres­i­dent, Her Ex­cel­len­cy Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, and the Hon Bridgid An­nisette-George, MP and Speak­er of the House. The Prime Min­is­ter, Hon Kei­th Row­ley, and the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, the Hon Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar were on the same page about her ex­cel­lence, as none could have dis­agreed about her saga­cious­ness and pa­tri­o­tism.

She up­held our Par­lia­ment’s val­ues of ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, law-mak­ing and over­sight func­tions and rev­o­lu­tionised its op­er­a­tions for greater ef­fi­cien­cy. She im­proved pub­lic com­mu­ni­ca­tions, dig­i­talised Hansard, and oth­er records, and en­hanced the li­brary, in­stru­ments of ac­count­abil­i­ty, and com­mit­tee sys­tems. She fa­cil­i­tat­ed the re­vi­sion of the Stand­ing Or­ders. The Par­lia­ment grew from a sin­gle, fa­mous build­ing to a mod­ern com­plex. She en­livened it with our artistes’ cre­ative works, the vi­va­cious­ness and bril­liance of youth par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, and a World of Work In­tern­ship Pro­gramme. She was a light for the Caribbean, Amer­i­c­as and the At­lantic Re­gion mem­bers of the Com­mon­wealth Par­lia­men­tary As­so­ci­a­tion, who of­ten sought her guid­ance.

Her smil­ing eyes roll—a kind of re­buke—when any­one wastes her time and tries her pa­tience. But the per­ma­nent, dim­pled smile does not mask the li­oness’s re­solve to up­hold the ideals of the peo­ple’s place. The in­com­pa­ra­ble Jacqui is de­serv­ing of a na­tion­al award.