There was no constitutional obligation on anyone’s part to inform Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar that Police Complaints Authority (PCA) Director David West was asked to withdraw his witness statement in a matter involving former attorney general Anand Ramlogan and Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley. This was the view of former UNC leader and prime minister Basdeo Panday, who said this demonstrated, more than ever, the need for constitutional reform.
Panday described the PM’s insistence that West, Ramlogan and even Rowley were supposed to inform her as a farce and a tragi-comedy. “The delayed tragic-comedy that took place at the Diplomatic Centre on Monday demonstrates clearer than I could possibly have expressed the urgent need for meaningful constitutional reform in this country,” Panday said in a media statement.
He was referring to the cabinet reshuffle and the PM’s address to the nation which saw the sacking of the attorney general Anand Ramlogan and former national security minister Gary Griffith. The two are now identified as a person of interest and a witness, respectively, in a criminal probe into witness tampering allegations made by West. “It is the present Constitution that allows for such a farce to be perpetrated on this nation.
“The Prime Minister is reported to have said Ramlogan and Griffith had an obligation to inform her of the alleged call to West regarding the request to withdraw the witness statement. Why?” Firing a series of questions, he asked, “From whence does such obligation arise? Is such an obligation moral or legal? Is it in the Constitution? “And when could or should they have done so? Has she so organised her Cabinet or her administration that opportunities are provided for such conversations or complaints?”
Panday said if T&T had a Parliament elected on the basis of proportional representation, separate and apart from the Government, whose function included the power to examine and approve or disapprove sensitive appointments before they were confirmed, “this ugly situation” would never have arisen. “We must separate the Government from the Parliament,” he said.
Concerning the PM’s statement that Rowley should also have informed her, Panday asked the same series of questions. “Is this a moral or legal or constitutional obligation? In any case, how does she know what transpired between the President and the Leader of the Opposition when the required consultation between them took place? “And why does Rowley have an obligation to inform her? When and where could he have done so? Under what item of the parliamentary agenda?”
Panday said “this confusion” had its genesis in the present Constitution, which encouraged secrecy and denied the public the right to know. “She also asked why did not West tell her or the President he was a witness in a civil matter? How does she know West did not inform the President of that? “Has she spoken to the President? If so, when? Government by secrecy again?
“We need a Constitution that provides for open government. Why should West tell her he is a witness in a civil matter?” Panday said the most significant dimension of the Prime Minister’s speech, however, was not what she said but what she left out. “Hasn’t she been told of several acts of corruption, waste and mismanagement in her Government over the four and a half years of her reign?
“What has she done about them? Maybe that is why her ministers do not tell her anything. “Nothing is done in response to their complaints.” Dismissing Rowley’s call for a general election to put the nation out of its misery, Panday said, “An election will not solve our problems. “These problems can only be solved by reforming the Constitution to establish a genuine separation of powers between the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary.
“This must be done before any election.” Panday was ousted by Persad-Bissessar as UNC leader in the build-up to the May 2010 general election which she won. Panday, some have said, was Persad-Bissessar’s political mentor, but since her ascension to leadership of the UNC there has been no evidence of warm relations between the two.