Parliamentary Reform: Review and Suggestions

• 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: 174-212

174| Democracy and Constitution Reform

Parliamentary Reform:

Review and Suggestions

6

We now consider the most important, well-known, and highly

regarded suggestions for parliamentary reform that have been forwarded

in Trinidad and Tobago. In addition, both contributors to this book

present their own suggestions for reform. The specifics of these proposals

are sometimes quite different from each other, but if the basics of our

analysis so far is understood, then there is not necessarily incompatibility.

We begin by briefly reviewing some of the major suggestions for

parliamentary reform, for since a free, strong, and responsible parliament

is at the heart of democratic self-government, it is parliamentary reform

that is most important. Our evaluations are based on the need for

parliament to be alive, conscientious, free, responsible, and strong, to

securely and fairly include all legitimate national interests (in other

words, wide participation), and to be at the centre of the system, with

the authority and power to ensure that the prime minister and cabinet

carry out their duties responsibly. And finally, our evaluations are

concerned with effectiveness. Effectiveness is context-based, both tangible

and intangible, such as national or elite will, capability, legitimacy,

culture, financial and administrative capacity, process, and even the

agents of reform. The challenge then becomes re-cast as not so much

identifying ideal reforms in theory, but effective reform in practice.

Effective reforms may not be final, but part of a development toward

ideal ends, which will have to be embodied in very context-specific

ways.

Parliamentary Reform |175

The Wooding Commission

Overall, the Wooding Commission summarised their

recommendations as follows:

We propose measures which we believe will materially contribute to a revival

of parliamentary democracy in Trinidad and Tobago, provide for meaningful

participation in constitutional parliamentary politics and establish the

institutional framework within which government and opposition parties

alike can play an active role in conducting the business of the State. We have

also sought to safeguard the rights and freedoms of the individual and to

provide avenues through which he can make his voice heard or seek redress

for any infringement of his rights. (Constitution Commission 1974, 112)

Under its recommendations for Parliament (Constitution

Commission 1974, 40–68), the Commission had recommended the

replacement of our bicameral (two-chamber) Parliament of House of

Representatives and Senate with a unicameral (single chamber) National

Assembly:

We see no justification for the creation of a nominated second Chamber as

a check on a Chamber of elected representatives. The electoral system should

be such that no party should be able to secure such an overwhelming

majority in the elected Chamber that it can amend entrenched provisions

unless it has won an equally overwhelming majority of the votes cast at the

elections.…

It seems to us that there are no considerations of democratic principle, of

convenience or of tradition to justify the existence of a Senate, nominated or

elected. The history of the Senate over the past twelve years has not been

particularly distinguished. A few of the independent senators have made

useful contributions but there is little doubt that these contributions would

have been more effective had they been made in the House of

Representatives.

Accordingly we recommend that the Senate should be abolished and that

the legislature should consist of a single Chamber called the National

Assembly. (Constitution Commission 1974, 44, 47)

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The unicameral National Assembly would be composed of 72

members. Based on the results of general elections in which electors

would have a single vote, 36 members would be returned to the National

Assembly in single-member constituencies, as is the practice in the

current House of Representatives. The other 36 members would be

returned on a PR basis from the existing ballots. This compromise

between the FPTP and straightforward list systems was intended to

produce a parliament that would more accurately reflect the national

distribution of votes while at the same time be able to ‘produce and

sustain a government able to govern the country’, the so-called ‘twin

needs of representation and efficiency’ (Constitution Commission 1974,

51). The strengths of the FPTP system (the clear relationship between

constituency and representative, prevention of the ‘mushrooming of mini

parties’, according to it) were to be joined with the straightforward list

system (ensuring that ‘every vote counts’), offsetting each other’s

weaknesses.

Since it would enhance the strength of the National Assembly in

the system of government, perhaps more important was the Committee

system. As proposed by the Wooding Commission, this system would

raise the power and responsibility of the National Assembly closer to

the level of the prime minister and cabinet, by giving to joint select

parliamentary committees responsibilities for initial investigation,

collation of information, and to convene public and private hearings

with the general citizenry. The purpose was to better facilitate wide

participation, the debating of bills, examination of government policies,

and keeping of a watchful eye on the implementation of policy and

expenditure of public funds by the executive. The spirit of the

recommendations was summarised as follows:

Our aim has been to make the Parliament much more representative of the

people and to create procedures which will cause it to be more responsive to

the will of the people through its Committees. By altering the procedure for

enacting legislation it is expected that the role of Parliament in this field will

not be purely mechanical as it tends to be at present. Each part of the plan

is dependent on every other part and together it constitutes an organically