A constitutional crisis - so what?
Those who scream that President Robinson has violated the Constitution by refusing to appoint electoral losers as Ministers in PM Panday's government may be right, but if they are, they aren't righter than those who scream that the Constitution has been working against the development of real popular autonomy and real popular politics since its imposition on us nearly 40 years ago. Indeed, they are quick to scream presidential violation, but are generally silent on the prime ministerial dictatorship that our stupid colonial Constitution enshrines in the name of democracy.
I prefer to scream against the Constitution instead of against Robinson's alleged violation of it!
We may have a constitutional crisis in Robinson's refusal to act in accordance with Panday's advice, but we have been living with a much greater constitutional crisis for nearly 40 years now - the crisis of a Constitution that places all executive power in the person of a Prime Minister. In general elections, people vote in 36 different constituencies and in several different ethnicities, but the effect of their voting is to empower one person to do as he pleases in the business of national government.
This person goes by the name of 'Prime Minister', but in truth and in fact is governor, king, emperor, and fuehrer all rolled into one. He it is that determines who shall be ministers of government and where they shall serve. He it is that is in control of the Executive as well as the legislature, both houses. He it is that is in control of the State Enterprises. Officially. And unofficially (which is to say, illegally at times), in the way our political culture has evolved, he is in control of much more (including, God forbid, members of the Judiciary?).
Here is a Constitution that subordinates almost the entire executive decision-making process to one man, and yet, we want to protect and preserve it at the first hint of presidential violation?!
Here is a Constitution that allows a prime minister to advise the appointment of electoral losers (yes, I agree with Panday that it does) and so make a mockery of the will of the constituencies who did not elect them by majority vote, and we want to protect and preserve it?! Here is a Constitution that says that the Prime Minister's judgment is much more valuable than the judgment of the majority of voters in a constituency, and we want to protect and preserve it?!
I am deeply offended, not simply by the fact that Panday can seek to have losers as ministers, but, more importantly, by the fact that our Constitution allows a prime minister to do so. Personalities clearly matter in this offence; it is Panday that wants up to seven losers to serve as ministers, not Williams or Chambers or Robinson or Manning before him. But the problem is more structural than it is personal: the Constitution seems to allow it.
But Robinson will not. Panday's intention, whether it is constitutionally permissible or not, offends both Robinson's sense of democracy and his record as a defender of a particular theory and practice of democracy. So he will not appoint Panday's losers. And some of those who disagree with him are screaming constitutional crisis and constitutional sanctity.
I am not screaming these things, for we have been in constitutional crisis these 40 years or so. What has happened now is that Panday's intention to exploit a stupidity in the Constitution has pushed Robinson to violate a clause in that Constitution (my opinion) in deference to a higher moral (and perhaps political) principle: persons the people reject should not be made to sit in government over the people.
But irony of ironies, it is the same Constitution that allows him to violate the clause with impunity. Read that again! Robinson can refuse Panday, and the Constitution doesn't prevent him from doing so; and the courts cannot inquire into his discretions.
What, though, does he hope to achieve?
A Panday retreat? What if it doesn't happen?
Constitutional reform? Isn't it Panday who has to authorise it? But how will he authorise it if he feels justified in advising the appointment of losers? His argument is rhetorical: why shouldn't a person who loses by one vote be able to sit in government?
We badly need constitutional reform as a serious national exercise of consultation. We badly need autonomous individuals to intervene and create a state of affairs in which excessive domination by the Executive is curtailed, in particular, domination by the Prime Minister.
Robinson has taken a step in that direction, but his history advises that we cannot and should not count on him to take us home. One piece of that history is that he endorsed a Tobago House of Assembly Bill (later Act 40 of 1996) that gave the Chief Secretary powers in Tobago akin to those of the national Prime Minister, against advice to the contrary from people like myself. What Panday wants to do Charles (or any other chief secretary) could want to do if the THA election results are analogous to the general elections results.
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