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.

Dr. Dennis Pantin questions Public Consultation Process
 

"Will Ghany repeat insult of Ryan/LaGuerre public consultations? One question repeatedly asked at the launch was why the report of the public consultations, chaired by Professors Selwyn Ryan and John La Guerre, on the Clarke and POFG constitutions has not been publicised? Participants in this earlier consultations are legitimately incensed and insulted by its non-publication, since this would confirm the extent to which their views were taken into account.

This outrage is deepened by the fact that the latest Manning draft ignores major proposals made in these earlier public consultations, including on the right to referendum and recall and direct election of chief national executive, whether president or prime minister. Ghany expressed innocence as to whether there was such a report, and therefore on why it had not been made public. The larger question begged is whether Ghany also does not intend to publicly report on the public consultations which he is chairing? I

n his response, Ghany seemed to signal that he was doing a report for “the Government,” and that was it."

Click the link to read the full column.

Ramesh Maharaj: Proposed Constitution not in public interest

In this article- the Eighth in his series- Ramesh Maharaj, SC contends that "the proposed new constitution would not promote democratic values, and that it would, instead, be inimical to the public interest. The first matter deals with the fundamental changes to the administration of justice in Trinidad and Tobago. The changes would facilitate the government to have direct influence over the judiciary. The existing constitutional arrangements insulate members of the judiciary from political party contact and influence. This insulation would be removed, and instead members of the judiciary would have direct contact and influence from politicians." 

Click the link and read more

Address of the Chief Justice at the Opening of the 2009/2010 Law term- with discussion on Constitution Reform (C.J Archie, Sept 2009)

"the rule of law is unsustainable without scrupulous adherence to the principles of separation of powers...we need independent and effective Court Administration to make the Separation of Powers and Judicial Independence a reality. The danger lies in the potential to gradually and systematically strip the judiciary of its independence and the citizens of their protection through ordinary or subordinate legislation not requiring special majority."

Organised Labour and Constitutional Reform in Canada (Savage, Fall 2007)

Charting the Future: Canada's new Constitution (1968 to 2002)

This is an excellent historical record of Canada's Constitutional reform. The link contains 10 Television clips and 6 Radio clips .

Senate Reform in Canada (Makarenko, Oct 2006)

Canada has a long and diverse history of Senate reform proposals, dating back to 1874, when the House of Commons heard, and rejected, a proposal to allow each province to select its own Senators. This article provides an overview and analysis of this history of Senate reform. It focuses strictly on the period between 1970 and 2007, and describes and compares individual reform proposals, as well as general trends during this period.

Changing Our Constitution (Dr. Ghany, 2009)

This is a very recent publication- launched in October 2009. It is a comparison of the existing Constitution of Trinidad and Toabgo and the Working Document on Constitution Reform for  Public Consultation.

Appointing a Prime Minister (Denis Solomon, Oct 2001) 

In this 2001 article Denis Solomon says "There is no provision of the Constitution that clearly empowers the President to decide that a government has lost its majority, even in the event of a legislative defeat. The relevant constitutional provisions are in fact written backwards. Instead of empowering the President to determine whether the Prime Minister still commands majority support, and replace him, it states that 'when there is occasion for the appointment of a prime minister' the President shall appoint the person who has a majority. What such an 'occasion' might be, other than a general election or a no-confidence resolution, is anyone's guess. It is true that the President 'shall act in his own deliberate judgment' in the exercise of his power to appoint the Prime Minister. But this is interpretable as being subordinate to the phrase 'when there is occasion'."

Political Parties and their contributions to modern T&T (Selwyn Cudjoe, April 2002)

"By 1976, the electorate had begun to feel a sense of discomfort with PNM's arrogance and the hints of corruption and mismanagement that was taking place in its ranks. To be sure, that corruption was child's play to what took place during the reign of the UNC. However, for a party that promised morality in public affairs stealing from the public purse was not acceptable. Moreover, the entrenchment of the PNM in governance from 1956 to 1976 made them feel invincible and somewhat immune to public criticism. In this context the coming together of the United Labour Front promised a return to inter-racial solidarity and a chance to move away from the racial stasis that pervaded the social order. Whatever else ULF represented, it represented the combination of all of the forces who had become alienated from the government and had been trying for years to remove the PNM from power. It consisted of all of PNM's known enemies: Panday; A. N. R. Robinson (Democratic Labour Front), and Lloyd Best (Tapia House Movement). Joe Young, George Weekes and Raffique Shah represented the labour elements in this formation."

Report of Telford Georges on Independence of T&T Judiciary (Feb 2000)

The CCJ: History and Analysis of the debate (Caricom 2000)

Broadcast Code and the Constitution (Tony Fraser, May 2005)

"What if the invasion of the privacy of the member of the public, who happens to be a government minister/official, results in his/her indictment for stealing millions of dollars from the national Treasury, or for exercising bias in the distribution of benefits to the public from the country's national resources? Of course such action will result in "harmful consequences" to the individual concerned, but what weight should be given to the "harmful consequences" to the individual compared to abuse of public resources? Clearly, the public interest and the right of the public to know must rule in such circumstances. It does not however mean that media have the unqualified right to deprive citizens of their privacy on flimsy bases. Courts, even in the US where regulations are limited, have ruled against media for unnecessarily and maliciously violating the privacy of individuals. In a judgment a European court ruled that "the right to the freedom of speech does not provide justification for the infringement of privacy; however the right to privacy is not absolute."

Panday: Manning will abolish Integrity Commission (Sept 2009)

Ramesh Maharaj- Citizens need substantive democracy

"The continuous policy of central government holding on to the power of control of the administration of local government bodies would continue to strangle the effectiveness of local government representation, and would continue to deny citizens local government justice. There is no proposal in the draft constitution to give effect to several of the reforms which Mr Dennis Pantin and others have called for, including the right of recall of elected representatives if the people want them recalled before the expiry of their elected terms."

Ramesh Maharaj condemns Justice Ministry (Aug 2009)

Freedom of the Press (August 2006)

The Separation of Powers (Feb 2005)

Drunkenness at Democracy's Door (Dr. Ghany, May 2005)

"As T&T witnesses unprecedented scenes in its political evolution, there all kinds of concurrent developments that are beginning to form a powerful and intoxicating cocktail that may cause drunkenness at democracy’s door.The ridiculous mess within the UNC has now become a sick joke, due process and all. The controversy surrounding the Chief Magistrate and the Chief Justice threatens to rip the Judiciary apart with the potential to spread its poison to the Caribbean Court of Justice as a precedent for the future. The public outcry over the President’s Grounds and the aluminum smelter plant underscores the powerlessness of communities in our political system to influence public policy.There were, however, two reinforcing moments last week for democracy, namely the announcement of the possibility of an early general election and the real prospect of constitutional reform.Given the present configuration of political parties and feuds, the current odds seem to favour the PNM being returned to power and Prime Minister Manning having his mandate renewed.With the opposition lampooning itself at the moment, there is no effective watchdog operating in the society. The PNM has an easy pass with the compliments of the UNC who cannot figure out who is their leader (as they have two) from their own rules (as they cannot decide where correspondence should or should not go).

Separation of Powers & the CCJ (Dr. Ghany, Feb 2005)

"The recent judgment by the Privy Council in the matter of the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights (1998) Ltd vs the Hon Syringa Marshall-Burnett and the Attorney General of Jamaica (Privy Council Appeal No 41 of 2004) that was handed down on February 3, instant has opened a major debate about the protection of the Separation of Powers in all of the member states who will share the jurisdiction of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ)."

Let the Constitutional Debate begin (Dr. Ghany, August 2006)

"It is clear that the Government would like to move ahead with constitutional reform with some dispatch.It is recommended that there be some kind of national consultation on a wide scale, so that these changes will not be made lightly. Having two draft constitutions laid before the public is a good outcome for our democracy. It will allow for two different models of constitutional reform to be debated, and will provide an opportunity for both sides to explain their respective positions. t will be important for consultations to take place, and it may not be necessary to draw these consultations out over a long period of time."

Understanding Proportional Representation (Dr. Ghany, Dec 2005)

"In 1974, the very thought of proportional representation being mixed with the first past-the-post system led Dr Eric Williams, in a scathing attack on the Wooding Constitution Commission, to categorically state that such a reform was designed to remove the PNM from power. One gets the impression that Williams’ views still resonate within the halls of Balisier House and that the PNM is more than likely to be very suspicious of any version of proportional representation.Curiously enough, the PNM may perform much better under proportional representation than they think, primarily because under the existing first past-the-post system PNM candidates do not lose their deposits in UNC strongholds, whereas UNC candidates usually lose their deposits in PNM strongholds.Seeing that proportional representation does not involve the use of constituencies (rather the entire country is treated as a single constituency) the gremlins of voter padding would lose their place in our electoral lingo."

Power Sharing versus Winner Takes All (Dr. Ghany, April 2006)

"As the issue of constitutional reform, as expressed in the draft constitution by the Principles of Fairness Group, continues to attract attention, one area that must be considered is the question of power-sharing, as opposed to the system of winner takes all.That is essentially a split between a consensual model of democracy (where competing political interests hold power in different parts of the system and negotiate with each other to arrive at compromises), and the majoritarian model (where only one of the competing political interests earns the right to control the entire political system to the exclusion of all others).The prospect of voters having two votes (one for the executive branch and one for the legislative branch) opens the door to a range of possibilities that will permit new levels of participation in the political process that did not previously exist.Such a change will bring with it a fundamental revision of the way in which institutional accountability and political competition will integrate with each other."

T &T Constitution reform overdue (Dr. Ghany, Nov 2004)

"As 2004 draws to a close, the country appears to be nowhere near the start of any formal exercise designed to embark on constitutional reform. The Government has made soundings on the issue since winning the October, 2002, general elections (and some of these were made in the heat of the 2003 Local Government elections). However, there has not been any official attempt to launch the process itself.There are those who argue that constitutional reform can, and ought to, take place outside of the formal arenas of State power and authority and, therefore, waiting on the Government to launch the exercise is a State-centred approach. While there may be merit in that argument, the reality is that nothing is going to happen with our Constitution if the formal wheels of State power do not start rolling anytime soon.In essence, the population must have some expression of their collective desire to seek constitutional reform in order for the Government to take this matter seriously.As it stands now, there is no urgency for the incumbent Government to do anything on the matter, as their current situation is one in which the existing system allows them to enjoy the spoils of office and excludes the Opposition entirely."

Uniting with St. Vincent and Grenada (Dr. Ghany, Nov 2004)

"There are clear economic issues that must be addressed in relation to the single market and economy, the law of the sea (inclusive of the existing dispute between T&T and Barbados) and the new exclusive economic zone that would emerge, the Caribbean Court of Justice and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the oil and gas economy in relation to Venezuela, tourism development and investment opportunities, etc.The proposal is a most interesting one which could give real meaning to the lip service of regional unity. However, the ultimate challenge will lie in whether the people of all three countries want to go along with the measure.The task of leading will fall to the politicians who will have to demonstrate statesmanship in convincing almost everyone about the viability of their proposal."

Why our Democracies need reform (Dr. Ghany, Feb 2005)

"As the movement for constitutional reform continues to gain momentum, there are some key areas of our political system in the Commonwealth Caribbean that do require attention.Perhaps the most crucial of all is creating the basis for the Executive and the Legislature to be elected separately, so as to allow the electorate to determine whether they wish to split their mandate between parties controlling one or the other branch of government, or whether they wish to bestow control of both branches upon a single party.Such a reform will reduce the level of maximum leadership that currently exists in our political systems. Commonwealth Caribbean prime ministers are able to exert considerable power over the political process because of the nature of the parliamentary system, which allows the Executive to dominate the Legislature."

Parliament and the Chief Whip (Dr. Ghany, Feb 2006)

Integrity in Public Life and Constitutional Precautions (Dr. Ghany, Jan 2006)

The PNM and Opposition Unity (Dr. Ghany, March 2006)

"One of the political mistakes made by the PNM in 1985 was to believe that Robinson, Hudson-Phillips and Panday could not unite to form a single party to wrest power from them by 1986.They did and they captured political power, but they never worked out their internal problems, and so they fractured internally in record time and then disintegrated gradually.The PNM cannot afford to believe that Dookeran, Panday, Maharaj and Warner will not unite in the face of a general election. Most likely, they will and they can; however, uniting for the sake of capturing political power is a cardinal error if that power cannot be sustained by unity based on principles."

Veto power of the Prime Minister (Dr. Ghany, Jan 2006)

"In the earlier incarnation of the Police Reform Bills, there was a proposal for the Commissioner of Police to be appointed on the joint advice of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.

In my opinion, this would be a constitutional nightmare, as our constitutional foundation is based upon the Opposition being excluded from any form of ministerial responsibility.Any exercise of prime ministerial advice is based upon the doctrine of the individual responsibility of ministers. Our system of government has a Westminster foundation that envisages the Leader of the Opposition being opposed to the Prime Minister.This attempt to get the two offices to offer joint advice does not take into account the adversarial nature of our constitutional arrangements, as well as the fact that the Prime Minister is bound by the rules of ministerial responsibility (for which censure, resignation and dismissal for no confidence are all possibilities), while the Leader of the Opposition has no constitutional responsibility to bear.As a consensual tool, the method of joint advice is untenable, primarily because one or other of the parties may change their minds after appointment, if poor performance becomes an issue, thereby creating an embarrassment for the appointee, or consensus may never be reached."

Under our existing constitutional arrangements, the responsibility for making appointments to offices within the State should always remain within the exclusive domain of the executive branch of government.

Crime and the Constitution (Dr. Ghany, Feb 2006)

"There are many challenges that face a society like ours. My own appreciation of the situation is one in which I have recognised that the crime situation in this country has been linked in more than one way to issues of parliamentary representation.Any examination of parliamentary representation and crime will take us out of the arena of criminology and into the arena of political science. However, a broad cross-section of pressure groups and academics continue to make a case for parliamentary representation to be linked to solutions for the crime problem. This has been going on for years.This is an interesting angle given the nature of our constitutional system and the fact that the directives of their respective party caucuses mainly govern parliamentarians."

Transparency in the appointment of a Commissioner of Police

"The revised version of the Constitution Amendment Bill, currently before the Parliament of this country, that seeks to change the way in which the Police Service Commission is appointed, as well as the manner in which the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioners of Police are appointed, represents a fundamental shift of political culture towards the introduction, ultimately, of an executive presidency.The fact that the Prime Minister has surrendered the veto power that he had over appointments to the offices of Commissioner of Police and Deputy Commissioners of Police is a major step in the direction of introducing greater transparency into the way in which key appointments are made. 

Transparency has now descended upon a process that is still largely secretive."

Will Constitution reform materialise? (Dr. Ghany, Nov 2005)

Constitution change and fragmented Opposition Parties (Dr. Ghany, Dec 2005) 

In Dec 2005 Dr. ghany wrote that "With the society now operating in a mode of political turnover within the last 20 years, those parts of our Constitution that require the support of the Opposition for the passage of legislation requiring special majorities have taken on a new dimension.This was not a problem that was beyond solution in the 1960s and 1970s for the PNM, when they were able to negotiate with parts of a fragmented Opposition to enact special majority legislation. In 1968, Bhadase Maraj supported the amendment of the Constitution to introduce the Teaching Service Commission, while the rest of the Opposition did not support the legislation."

The Challenge of Opposition Unity (Dr. Ghany, Sept 2006)

The Opposition Leader and the Constitution (Dr. Ghany, Nov 2005)

The Chief Justice and the Constitution (Dr. Ghany, Aug 2006)

This column examines the decision of then CJ Sharma to stop performing his judicial functions as CJ and the decision of the President to appoint someone to act as CJ. Dr Ghany says in his column that "The fundamental Constitutional issue that arises here is the matter of the inability to perform the functions of one’s office and the application of personal judgment in making such a decision.This has caused considerable Constitutional debate over the years, regardless of the office that one is speaking about."

18/18 and President Robinson's Constitutionality (Dr. Ghany, March 2006)

"There are those who argue that a tie cannot happen again with the move to 41 seats, but that, too, is a faulty premise, as two parties can win an even number of seats each and a third party can win an odd number of seats.The party winning the odd number could choose to indicate that it supports neither of the two major parties (as happened in St Kitts-Nevis in 1993), and we would be back to a tied result, with no neutral precedent from the past."

Regional Unity and Constitutional Reform (Dr. Ghany, Jan 2005) 

"The nature of the constitutional reform must be the introduction of a political system that will allow for a separation of powers that will offer the prospect of power sharing through the possibility of one party controlling the Executive and another controlling the Legislature. This is a common feature of the consensual democracies of the world, but it is uncommon to us.The absolute dominance of both branches of government by one party under the existing system has not provided the peoples of the region with the kind of accountability and transparency they deserve."

Parliament: No more than a rubber stamp (Dr. Ghany, April 2006) 

Dr. Ghany says in 2006 that "One of these is the greater enforcement of the separation of powers to remove the overlap between the Executive (Cabinet) and the Legislature (Parliament).The Westminster traditions of Cabinet, being able to dominate the Parliament, have been overdone in our democratic process.By allowing the Cabinet the right to determine when Parliament should or should not sit, and allowing the prime minister the right to dissolve Parliament has rendered Parliament nothing more than a rubber stamp in our environment."

The culture of Maximum Leaders (Dr. Ghany, Dec 2005)

In this column about the culture of Maximum Leaders Dr. Ghany says that "Given the nature of our political culture, this kind of open disagreement is alien to our political process of maximum leadership and the measurement of loyalty by the degrees of public silence over internal political difficulties by party members.The right to criticise and to openly express political dissent without penalty is more akin to the American system of primary elections, where party colleagues literally tear each other’s views apart to seek their party’s nomination for various offices, before becoming unified in the face of the ensuing general election."

Election Alliances and the Constitution (Dr. Ghany, September 2007) 

In this column Dr. Ghany examines the election alliance of 2007 and says "The Constitution makes provision for two scenarios where the appointment of a prime minister is concerned.One is where there is an undisputed leader whose party commands a majority of the seats in the House of Representatives.The other is where there is no undisputed leader, or where no party commands the support of a majority.It appears the alliance is operating on the basis of having no undisputed leader, as long as it continues to use the leadership council method to face the electorate.The challenge will come when they have to decide on a leader. So far, Cadiz has made his position known about Panday.Will that be a breaking point for him if the others decide to appoint Panday?

The CCJ as the Final Court of Appeal for the Region (Michael Lilla, May 2008)

Joint Select Committees and a new Parliamentary Culture (Dr. Ghany, May 2004)

In this May 2004 Guardian column, Dr. Ghany says "The recent public sitting of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament to meet members of the Statutory Authorities Service Commission has opened the door to a new parliamentary culture that will allow the public questioning of officials by legislators."

Comments on proposed changes to Vincentian Constitution (Dr. Francis Alexis, September 2009)

Maximum Leaders under new Constitution (Mickey Matthews, Oct 2009)

Mickey Mathews, writing in the T&T Review, October 2009 says that "One of the most intriguing proposals in the Manning draft excludes the Chief Justice from sitting on the Judicial and Legal Service commission. It is not clear how the CJ will relate in the new arrangement to JLSC of which he is currently chairman because its architecture is incomplete."

New Constitution arrangements for Tobago (Dr. Hamid Ghany, November 2006)

In this Guardian column Dr. Ghany says that "The unresolved question is whether Tobago’s historical hurt of 1889 can be sufficiently healed by the complete revision of Act No 40 of 1996, or whether something beyond that is required.This seminally unresolved matter seems to have dogged the debate in Tobago itself during the last three decades, starting with the differences between ANR Robinson and Dr Winston Murray in the 1976-’81 Parliament, the resignation of Dr Jeff Davidson as THA Chairman in 1989, the presentation of two slates of NAR councillors at the opening of the THA in 1992, the formation of the People’s Empowerment Party (PEP) by Deborah Moore-Miggins, the return of the PNM to power in Tobago at the level of the THA, as well as control of the two seats from Tobago in the House of Representatives, and the rebirth of the DAC in the last THA elections.

The differences between ANR Robinson and Winston Murray may reflect the challenges of two different pathways forward in resolving the historical hurt of 1889."

Working Paper on Constitutional Reform, 2009

Principles of Fairness Draft Constitution, 2006

Draft Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago, 2006

Report of the Wooding Commission, 1974

Report of the Constitution Commission(1987) headed by Sir Isaac Hyatali

Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago (with amendments to 2000)