PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC—Barendra Sinanan, Chairman of the Constitutional Review Committee, has brushed aside Opposition Leader Kamla Persad Bissessar’s call for him to step down after he publicly endorsed Trinidad and Tobago’s move towards gaining full membership of the Caribbean Court of Justice.
“Well, I heard what Mrs. Persad Bissessar said, and I don’t intend to step down,” Sinanan told a radio station here on Wednesday.
Persad Bissessar, speaking at a public meeting of her United National Congress (UNC) on Monday night, said Sinanan, a former speaker of Parliament, had appeared on a radio program supporting the CCJ replacing the London-based Privy Council as the country’s highest and final court.
“I am going to warn you now, the UNC will never at this vote to abolish the Privy Council, not at this time,” she told supporters, adding that the chairman has shown bias and needs to step down.
“The chairman openly endorsed abolishing the Privy Council on that radio program. So you have made up your mind: move the Privy Council, abolish it, go to the CCJ.
She said that the chairman consulting has to keep a neutral ground, adding, “You don’t give your view. We all have views. If you are chairing, what are you there to do? You are there to listen to points people are bringing forward,” she added.
She said that the chairman has shown bias and needs to step down.
“I know the chairman. I know he is a decent human being…respectable, decent lawyer. I think he knows what to do—he has to recuse himself.”
But Sinanan, a Senior Counsel, told radio listeners that his opinion “is not the committee’s opinion.
“My opinion is not the people’s opinion. Our mandate is to hear what the people have to say… We will submit our work to the Prime Minister (Dr. Keith Rowley), and whatever the people say will be in the report.
“My opinion is irrelevant,” he said, adding that the committee is holding several other meetings before submitting a report.
In January, Prime Minister Rowley told a news conference that the committee members are not being asked to craft a constitution.
“They are simply being asked to facilitate and advance a national discourse on the subject and to be the sounding board, the post office, into which any interested parties, agencies (and) organizations will want to put their views to this facility advisory committee.”
He said the committee members will receive the support and resources to conduct open consultations and collate and draft a working document for the constitutional conference in June, at which proposed amendments will be discussed.
Trinidad and Tobago government needs a special majority in the Parliament to join the CCJ, and the UNC controls 19 of the 41 seats in the Legislative Chamber.
At least five Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries—Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Dominica, and St. Lucia—have made the Trinidad-based CCJ their final court. The regional countries, including Trinidad and Tobago, have joined the Original Jurisdiction of the Court, which also serves as an international tribunal interpreting the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that governs CARICOM.
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