Daly Bread: The Young move—reviewing new prime minister’s early election date

Twenty-four hours after his appointment by virtue of section 76(1) (a) of the Constitution to replace former prime minister Dr Keith Rowley, new prime minister Stuart Young called the next general election for April 28.

This Young move is probably a good move for his prospects to be re-appointed as prime minister and to obtain the necessary validation of the people through the democratic voting process given the apparent disarray of the Opposition United National Congress (the UNC) and the scrambling to enter into alliances.

The electorate may be presented with what the late Lloyd Best might describe as “a pick-up side” and one easy to defeat.

Is the Young move good for the country in terms of the public interest? It probably is because it enables us promptly to decide which of the political parties and who as prime minister will govern us for the next five years, and thereby avoid political instability.

There are however potential troubles arising out of the swiftness of the Young move. We do not know, for example, whether the presence of several religious holidays during the chosen election campaign period was considered in arriving at the decision to call the election for 28 April 2025.

The possible fallout from this may be settled if the contending political parties swiftly come to an agreement that there is to be no campaigning on those days that are public holidays by reference to religious observance.

Something else was more obviously missed in the triumphal haste to make this strategic move of an immediate dissolution of Parliament. That omission was the failure to re-convene the Parliament before dissolution, in order to have the new Minister of Finance sworn as a senator, when it is a condition of the holding of his ministerial office that he be a member of Parliament.

According to my friends, I gave the governing People’s National Movement (the PNM) free legal advice in early January—having awakened the Rowley clique in the PNM hierarchy as to what was needed to comply with section 76(1)(a) of the Constitution in order to have Young properly appointed as prime minister.

Those friends may have cause to tease me again about giving free advice.

The 24 hour attorney general, Camille Robinson-Regis, may believe that this omission is not material to Dhanpaul’s actual authority to perform the duties of a minister because he derives that authority from his appointment by the President. But I am concerned that there is more to the omission than that.

Litigation frequently engulfs our practice of politics. Therefore, it would not be surprising if acts done by Vishnu Dhanpaul as minister of Finance in the pre-election period become subject to challenge in the court.

The omission to have Dhanpaul take the oath of allegiance as a senator before Parliament was dissolved ought not to be superficially dismissed as a matter of “tidiness”. (See Trinidad Express last Wednesday, quoting “sources”.)

In addition to all ministers being accountable to the people through Parliament, there is a specific link between the minister of Finance and the Parliament in the authorisation of expenditure set out in Chapter 8 of the Constitution.

Arguably, while the power is vested in the President to appoint Dhanpaul as both Senator and Minister, his appointment depends for its completion or crystalisation on Dhanpaul taking the oath of allegiance as a member of Parliament as required by section 57 of the Constitution.

Can Dhanpaul’s appointment be fully formed without the taking of that oath of allegiance?

Sadly also, at the time of writing, a troubling allegation about the new Prime Minister’s distant past has come to light. It will become more unpleasant if the sting of it is not drawn by a reconciliation meeting between the parties involved in the alleged incidents in the presence of an empathetic mediator.

Without such a reconciliation it is difficult simply “to move on”. Moreover our country’s international reputation does not need another hit arising out of the vicious back and forth that is going to otherwise ensue over the allegation during the election campaign.

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Martin Daly

Martin G Daly SC is a prominent attorney-at-law. He is a former Independent Senator and past president of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago.
He is chairman of the Pat Bishop Foundation and a steelpan music enthusiast.