Max Al­bert and I con­tin­ue our dis­cus­sions on the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my ques­tion. In our pre­vi­ous ar­ti­cle, we sug­gest­ed that many of To­ba­go’s con­sti­tu­tion­al de­bates may ul­ti­mate­ly stem from an un­re­solved ques­tion: Did the con­sti­tu­tion­al de­vel­op­ments rep­re­sent­ed by the restora­tion of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly in 1980 and the ad­min­is­tra­tive de­vel­op­ments of 1988 and 1996 pro­duce a cor­re­spond­ing change in the psy­chol­o­gy of the Re­pub­lic?

To­day, we ap­proach that ques­tion through the ex­pe­ri­ences of the men and women who helped build the THA.

We start off by ad­vert­ing that in­sti­tu­tions do not build them­selves. Laws do not im­ple­ment them­selves. Con­sti­tu­tions do not come alive on their own. Be­hind every in­sti­tu­tion stand in­di­vid­u­als whose labour, sac­ri­fice, and com­mit­ment trans­form le­gal arrange­ments in­to prac­ti­cal re­al­i­ties.

The mod­ern THA was built by such in­di­vid­u­als.

Some are no longer with us. For­mer As­sem­bly­man Car­lyle Dick passed away three years ago. For­mer Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer and Chair­man Jef­fer­son David­son has al­so passed on. For­mer Chair­man Lennox De­noon passed a few years ago. The first Chief Sec­re­tary, Ho­choy Charles, passed in 2023. And ear­li­er this year, for­mer As­sem­bly­man Stan­ley Beard passed away af­ter years of ad­vo­cat­ing for im­proved treat­ment of for­mer mem­bers and greater recog­ni­tion of their ser­vice.

Oth­ers re­main with us. Bene­dict Arm­strong, one of the pi­o­neers of the re­stored As­sem­bly, con­tin­ues to live among us. And Reg­is Caruth, an ear­ly As­sem­bly mem­ber, re­mains part of the liv­ing his­to­ry of the in­sti­tu­tion.

Their sto­ry, how­ev­er, is not unique. Many for­mer as­sem­bly­men and sec­re­taries who served the peo­ple of To­ba­go dur­ing the for­ma­tive years of the in­sti­tu­tion did so with­out re­tire­ment arrange­ments, re­flect­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of the of­fices they oc­cu­pied. Among them are for­mer Labour Sec­re­tary Max Al­bert James and for­mer As­sem­bly­woman Judy Bobb who re­ceive nei­ther pen­sion nor gra­tu­ity aris­ing from their ser­vice.

The As­sem­bly re­stored in 1980 was not the ma­ture in­sti­tu­tion we know to­day. Its au­thor­i­ty was evolv­ing. Its ad­min­is­tra­tive re­la­tion­ships were evolv­ing. Its con­sti­tu­tion­al role was evolv­ing. The men and women elect­ed dur­ing those for­ma­tive years car­ried re­spon­si­bil­i­ties far greater than their com­pen­sa­tion of­ten sug­gest­ed.

Many younger To­bag­o­ni­ans may be sur­prised to learn that ear­ly As­sem­bly mem­bers re­port­ed­ly re­ceived salaries in the vicin­i­ty of $2,300 per month while car­ry­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties af­fect­ing ed­u­ca­tion, agri­cul­ture, tourism, health, in­fra­struc­ture, and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment. Even al­low­ing for the pas­sage of time, the fig­ure ap­pears mod­est when mea­sured against the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties at­tached to the of­fices.

Yet one can­not help but ob­serve a cu­ri­ous in­con­sis­ten­cy in the con­sti­tu­tion­al life of the Re­pub­lic. For­mer Min­is­ters of Gov­ern­ment who served a sin­gle par­lia­men­tary term were en­ti­tled to pen­sion and gra­tu­ity arrange­ments re­flect­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of the of­fices they oc­cu­pied. And mem­bers of the Ju­di­cia­ry en­joy su­per­an­nu­a­tion arrange­ments re­flect­ing the im­por­tance at­tached to ju­di­cial in­de­pen­dence and the dig­ni­ty of ju­di­cial of­fice.

In­deed, when con­cerns were raised by mem­bers of the Ju­di­cia­ry re­gard­ing re­tire­ment ben­e­fits and their abil­i­ty to main­tain an ap­pro­pri­ate stan­dard of liv­ing af­ter re­tire­ment, Par­lia­ment re­spond­ed with leg­isla­tive ad­just­ments in­tend­ed to ad­dress those con­cerns. Whether one agrees or dis­agrees with those ad­just­ments is be­side the point. The point is that the Re­pub­lic recog­nised the prin­ci­ple.

Yet the ex­pe­ri­ence of many for­mer mem­bers of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly ap­pears marked­ly dif­fer­ent. Many for­mer As­sem­bly­men and Sec­re­taries who served a sin­gle term do not qual­i­fy for pen­sions. Many re­ceived no gra­tu­ity. Some spent years ad­vo­cat­ing for recog­ni­tion that nev­er ar­rived. Oth­ers passed away be­fore mean­ing­ful re­form could be con­sid­ered.

But the in­sti­tu­tion has en­dured. The Re­pub­lic has ben­e­fit­ed. And the ques­tion re­mains whether ad­e­quate recog­ni­tion has fol­lowed.

In our pre­vi­ous ar­ti­cle, we sug­gest­ed that pro­to­col and re­mu­ner­a­tion are among the ways in which a so­ci­ety ex­press­es con­sti­tu­tion­al val­ue. If that ob­ser­va­tion is cor­rect, then the treat­ment of for­mer As­sem­bly mem­bers may of­fer im­por­tant in­sight in­to how the in­sti­tu­tion it­self was viewed dur­ing its for­ma­tive years.

This is not an ar­gu­ment against judges. Nor is it an ar­gu­ment against min­is­ters. Judges de­serve dig­ni­ty. Min­is­ters de­serve dig­ni­ty. The ques­tion is whether those prin­ci­ples should ap­ply on­ly to some con­sti­tu­tion­al of­fice hold­ers and not to oth­ers.

If the As­sem­bly rep­re­sent­ed the po­lit­i­cal au­thor­i­ty of To­ba­go, and if suc­ces­sive Sec­re­taries ex­er­cised ex­ec­u­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ties af­fect­ing ed­u­ca­tion, health, tourism, agri­cul­ture, in­fra­struc­ture, and so­cial de­vel­op­ment, then a le­git­i­mate ques­tion aris­es: Why has the Re­pub­lic his­tor­i­cal­ly treat­ed these of­fices dif­fer­ent­ly?

The is­sue is not mere­ly fi­nan­cial. It is sym­bol­ic. It con­cerns the val­ue at­tached to the in­sti­tu­tion it­self. A pen­sion is not sim­ply mon­ey. A gra­tu­ity is not sim­ply mon­ey. They are ex­pres­sions of recog­ni­tion. They rep­re­sent so­ci­ety’s ac­knowl­edge­ment that ser­vice was ren­dered and that it mat­tered.

This is why the is­sue re­turns us to larg­er ques­tions raised in our pre­vi­ous ar­ti­cle: How did the Re­pub­lic view the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly? Was it viewed as a gen­uine cen­tre of po­lit­i­cal au­thor­i­ty with­in the Union? Or was it viewed as some­thing less?

Per­haps the time has come for a na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion re­gard­ing the place of for­mer As­sem­bly mem­bers with­in the con­sti­tu­tion­al or­der. Not be­cause they seek spe­cial treat­ment, but be­cause the in­sti­tu­tion they helped build de­serves the same re­spect the Re­pub­lic read­i­ly ex­tends to oth­er in­sti­tu­tions it con­sid­ers im­por­tant.

The ques­tion is not whether To­ba­go’s for­mer As­sem­bly­men should re­ceive priv­i­leges un­avail­able to oth­ers. The ques­tion is whether con­sti­tu­tion­al con­sis­ten­cy de­mands that those who helped build To­ba­go’s fore­most de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tion re­ceive the same con­sid­er­a­tion rou­tine­ly ex­tend­ed to oth­er con­sti­tu­tion­al of­fice hold­ers.

For if the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly mat­ters, then sure­ly the men and women who built it mat­ter as well.

Dr Win­ford James is a re­tired UWI lec­tur­er who has been analysing is­sues in ed­u­ca­tion, lan­guage, de­vel­op­ment and pol­i­tics in T&T and the wider Caribbean on ra­dio and TV since the 1970s. He has al­so writ­ten thou­sands of columns for all ma­jor news­pa­pers in the coun­try.