Prof Hamid Ghany

The of­fice of Speak­er was first cre­at­ed for the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil in 1950 by the Trinidad and To­ba­go (Con­sti­tu­tion) Or­der in Coun­cil 1950 (S.I. 1950/No. 510) at sec­tions 29 and 30. The of­fice was a nom­i­nat­ed one, where­by the Gov­er­nor would make the ap­point­ment in his own dis­cre­tion. This did not re­sem­ble stan­dard House of Com­mons prac­tice at the time, as their Speak­er was (and still is) an elect­ed MP.

The change from the 1950 ver­sion to elec­tion by the Leg­is­la­ture it­self came in sec­tions 23 and 24 of the Trinidad and To­ba­go (Con­sti­tu­tion)(Amend­ment) Or­der in Coun­cil 1956, which amend­ed sec­tions 29 and 30 of the 1950 Or­der.

These 1956 amend­ments pro­vid­ed for the Speak­er to be elect­ed ei­ther from among Mem­bers of the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil or from out­side.

Elect­ing a Speak­er from out­side the Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil was an­oth­er re­form that did not re­sem­ble stan­dard House of Com­mons prac­tice. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, those re­forms al­so in­clud­ed the elec­tion of the Speak­er by se­cret bal­lot.

How­ev­er, by 1961, when the next re­form of the of­fice of Speak­er was made, the se­cret bal­lot was re­moved as the Dr Er­ic Williams-in­spired con­sti­tu­tion­al changes en­gi­neered with the Colo­nial Of­fice kept the dual op­tion of elec­tion of the Speak­er ei­ther from among mem­bers of the new House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives or from out­side. Nom­i­na­tions and vot­ing for the Speak­er had to be done open­ly on the floor of the House. That has been the po­si­tion ever since.

This West­min­ster-White­hall ver­sion of the of­fice of Speak­er has nev­er re­sem­bled the of­fice of Speak­er at West­min­ster; how­ev­er, it is ex­pect­ed to be guid­ed by West­min­ster par­lia­men­tary prac­tice and pro­ce­dure.

Nat­u­ral­ly, over the sev­en decades of this of­fice, there have been con­tro­ver­sies. Those have arisen over the fact that the elect­ed ma­jor­i­ty of MPs are the ones who elect the Speak­er. In 1995, a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment was made by the Patrick Man­ning Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment to pro­vide for the re­moval of the Speak­er by ma­jor­i­ty vote af­ter a tri­bunal hear­ing.

Dur­ing the term of the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, the 1961 Stand­ing Or­ders were re­vised in 2014/2015.

Among the con­tro­ver­sies of some West­min­ster par­lia­men­tary tra­di­tions that have been adopt­ed for the of­fice of Speak­er is the way in which the Speak­er calls up­on MPs to speak in de­bates in the House.

Ac­cord­ing to Stand­ing Or­der 44(3) of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives:

“(3) If two or more Mem­bers rise at the same time, the Speak­er or Chair­man shall call up­on the Mem­ber who first catch­es his eye.”

This is a repli­ca­tion of a well-worn West­min­ster tra­di­tion which has been im­port­ed in­to our par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure and is based en­tire­ly up­on the dis­cre­tion of the Speak­er. This has noth­ing to do with any Gov­ern­ment ma­jor­i­ty.

There have been con­tentious ex­changes on the is­sue of “catch­ing the eye” of the Speak­er and re­cent com­ments in the pub­lic do­main have mixed up the Gov­ern­ment’s ma­jor­i­ty with “catch­ing the Speak­er’s eye”. The two are com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent from each oth­er.

The nor­mal process in par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure is that when one MP on the gov­ern­ment side speaks, the next MP to speak will come from the op­po­si­tion side. Af­ter that, the Speak­er would nat­u­ral­ly cast his/her eyes on­to the side whose turn is next to de­ter­mine from which bench to call the next MP to speak. The MP who catch­es the Speak­er’s eye is the one who will speak. An MP who does not “catch the Speak­er’s eye” will not be called to speak. It is that sim­ple.

This is to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent from the in­vo­ca­tion by any MP of Stand­ing Or­der 52(1) that a de­bate be end­ed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives as fol­lows:

“(1) Af­ter a ques­tion has been pro­posed, any Mem­ber may at any time dur­ing the course of de­bate rise in his place and move ‘That the ques­tion be now put’ and un­less it ap­pears to the Chair that that mo­tion is an abuse of the rules of the House or an in­fringe­ment of the rights of the mi­nor­i­ty, the ques­tion ‘That the ques­tion be now put’ shall be im­me­di­ate­ly put.”

In more re­cent times, this Stand­ing Or­der was used by Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, then MP for St Joseph, on Jan­u­ary 27, 2021, to ter­mi­nate an Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress mo­tion that ques­tioned the per­for­mance of Stu­art Young as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty (Hansard, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Jan­u­ary 27th, 2021, p. 260).

It was re­cent­ly in­voked by Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, MP for Oropouche East, to ter­mi­nate an Op­po­si­tion PNM mo­tion on the so­cio-eco­nom­ic im­pact of in­creased un­em­ploy­ment (Par­lia­ment Chan­nel YouTube, March 6th, 2026 @ 2:52).

On both oc­ca­sions, the de­bate was end­ed by ma­jor­i­ty vote among the MPs. That is def­i­nite­ly not “catch­ing the Speak­er’s eye”.

Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany is Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI. He was se­lect­ed by the THA to guide the dis­cus­sions on To­ba­go au­ton­o­my.