Introduction

• 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: 12-18

xii | Democracy and Constitution Reform

Introduction

In this book we attempt to get to the heart of democracy – or

democratic self-government, as we prefer to refer to it. We do so primarily

in order to help give effective direction and form to the process of

democratic constitution reform in Trinidad and Tobago. Understanding

the heart of democratic self-government, and its practical implications,

can add light where there is more heat, and clarity where there is

confusion. We believe that this analysis can also assist the process of

constitution reform that is at present occurring in the other islands of

the Caribbean as well. This analysis holds some importance to

understand political developments outside of the region, in the wider

world, particularly since at the time of writing, the United States leads

a forceful, idealistic, and armed campaign to establish ‘democracy’ in

many of the world’s oldest societies, which each have their own traditions

and forms of government. The fledgling experience of democracy in

Trinidad and Tobago – largely uninvolved in these wider conflicts – can

shed revealing light on regional and world developments through the

lessons learned in its special circumstances.

Our purpose is not so much to provide a particular set of reforms,

although both contributors to this book have separate proposals for

specific and immediate reform. The purpose, rather, is to inform public

debate intelligently, and to help increase the legitimacy for democratic

self-government. It is our aim to establish an independent, honest, and

unprejudiced basis for citizens to judge whether parliamentary and

electoral reform is at all justified in the context of establishing democratic

self-government. We will attempt to do this through open, consistent,

fair-minded, principled, and rigorous argument, analysis of our own

experience, and reviews of past proposals and recommendations, from