Appendix

• Author: Kirk Meighoo/Peter Jamadar
• Profession: Member of the Democratic National Assembly and the author of Politics in a Half-Made Society: Trinidad and Tobago 1925?2002/Judge of the Supreme Court of Trinidad and Tobago and the author of The Mechanics of Democracy
• Pages: 220-230

220| Democracy and Constitution Reform

Appendix

The 2006

Clarke-Manning Proposal

Since completing the manuscript for this book some three years

earlier, initiatives dealing with Constitution Reform have continued to

grow. One of these initiatives worth mention involved an elite non-

governmental association calling itself The Principles of Fairness, Inc.,

made up of former government ministers, high-profile businessmen,

Queen’s Counsel, the Principal of the St. Augustine Campus of the

University of the West Indies, among others. This group commissioned

Tajmool Hosein, QC (founding member of The Principles of Fairness,

Inc., former Parliamentarian, MP for Chaguanas 1961-66, former

member of the DLP, founding member of the now-defunct Liberal Party

of Trinidad and Tobago) and Dr. Hamid Ghany (Dean of the Faculty of

Social Sciences at the St. Augustine Campus of the University of the

West Indies, and former member of the Hyatali Commission) to craft a

Draft Constitution to recommend to Government, and to stimulate

national discussion. While the effort was notable, for many reasons

(perhaps including the unabashedly elitist nature of its construction),

their Draft Constitution was neither widely received by the public nor

accepted by the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

At the time of writing, however, the Principles of Fairness group has

begun a second, more intensive round, to promote its Draft, with some

level of official backing.

In addition, the primary author of this work, Kirk Meighoo, has

since become actively involved in a new political party and elected as

Political Leader (Trinidad). One of the party’s aims is Constitutional

Reform along lines similar to those outlined in this book, and also in

the Vision 2020 process, quite the opposite of the Principles of Fairness,

Inc.