Senator Dana Seetahal, SC asks : Can Parliament be challenged in Court?

"Where proceedings of Parliament are likely to have been tainted, on account of substantive or gross illegality or unconstitutionality, they could still be reviewed by the judiciary. In a Canadian case in 1996, the court considered the nature of parliamentary privilege, and commented that it could not be said that the courts have no role to play in the debate which arises where individual rights are alleged to conflict with parliamentary privilege. While the court recognised that under the British system of parliamentary supremacy, the courts arguably play no role in monitoring the exercise of parliamentary privilege, the situation with the Canadian courts was different, given their written constitution."

Derren Joseph writes about the Consultations on Constitutional reform.

In this Guardian piece Derren Joseph writes that "With the President appointing both Government and Independent Senators, would that stifle opinions? What is or would be the real purpose of the Senate? Should we abolish it and have a unicameral legislature? Should Senators be elected using some formula? I am among those who believe that the Senate leads to greater diversity of opinion and a greater range of debate on issues of national importance. It also gives more, talented individuals an opportunity to serve us all. At the same time, I agree with those who argue that (an appointed) Senate should never deliberately thwart the wishes of the House of Representatives, which is comprised of MPs elected by the people."

Note that the writer contradicts himself by saying on the one hand that  "the Senate leads to greater diversity of opinion and a greater range of debate on issues" and on the other hand  says "I agree with those who argue that (an appointed) Senate should never deliberately thwart the wishes of the House of Representatives, which is comprised of MPs elected by the people."

Click the link for the full Guardian article.

Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj:Separation of powers at heart of constitutionalism

In this Ninth Part of his series, Ramesh Maharaj says that "Under our existing system of government, the constitution prohibits the executive from controlling the judiciary. Under the existing constitution, the prime minister is prohibited from exercising the functions of head of state and is prohibited from exercising administrative powers of the judiciary. Under the existing constitution, the Government cannot use its simple majority in Parliament or its three-fifths majority to pass any law to take away the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. The provisions of the draft constitution would, however, give the Government those powers."

Click the link for the full Guardian article

Who are we, asks Prakash Persad.

Prakash Persad in his weekly Guardian column says "Constitutional change is, ostensibly, being “debated” in the islands of T&T. Ceremonial president versus executive president, first past the post versus proportional representation and various other issues are being considered, all with the aim of finding the form of government suitable for us. The odd thing is that, to date, nobody has characterised “us.” Lest the point is trivialised, it should be pointed out that a nation is usually defined as “a community of people of mainly common descent, history, language and culture inhabiting a territory.” Implicit in the definition is the concept of homogeneity."

Click the link to read the full column.

Mystery revealed: Who drafted the draft Constitution?

In this Guardian article the writer says that "The Prime Minister’s office has finally revealed the authors of the Draft National Constitution. The Constitution drafters are several Government ministers, along with former President Sir Ellis Clarke, academic figures and a representative of the Tobago House of Assembly. Prime Minister Patrick Manning chaired the roundtable team.

Apart from Manning and Clarke, other constitution drafters are Trinity Cross holder Tajmool Hosein, Professors Selwyn Ryan, John Spence and John la Guerre and Dr Hamid Ghany, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, St Augustine. For about three years, the authors of several drafts of a revised constitution had been the subject of much intrigue and speculation as the Government had declined to name its authors. But under provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, the drafters, who took part in discussions between September 2006 and January 2009, have been made public."

Click the link to read the full article.

Coalition Governments

In this column I say that "Across the Atlantic, the approach to coalition governments and the politics of cohesion is far different. Of thirty European states examined in November 2008, at least twenty one was governed by a coalition Government. The notable exception is of course the UK, whose Gordon Brown led Labour Government is likely to be one of the few G20 countries in which the party in power is likely to improve its ratings coming out of the economic events of 2008. Included in those twenty one are Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden. Europe’s coalitions also include the three party arrangements in Belgium; Czech Republic and the four party arrangements in Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania. Outside of these twenty one (21) countries in Europe with coalition governments, Greece is governed by a party which holds a slim two (2) seat majority and Hungary is governed by a minority government."

Click the link and read the Newsday column.

Derren Joseph writes about Proportional Representation.

In this column- one of several on the current Constituional reform Consultations chaired by Dr. Ghany- Derren Joseph says that "PR assures that political parties or candidates will have the percentage of legislative seats that reflects their public support. A party or candidate need not come in first to win seats. So in our context, a party such as the COP would have secured some presence in our Parliament. Among the arguments in favour of PR is that it leads to greater voter turnout, and it should lead to greater inclusion of women and minorities. As with many such ideas, however, the details are very important. There appears to be many variations of PR. Primarily, there are the list system and the single transferable vote (STV) system. But there are hybrids of this PR system in place in Australia, Bolivia, India, Mexico and so on."

Click the link to read the column.