Respected Trinidad and Tobago political scientist Prof Selwyn Ryan has confirmed that he quit the round table on constitutional reform. Ryan told the Trinidad Express he left as soon it came up with the idea of a Ministry of Justice."I sent a letter to the Prime Minister indicating that I did not think it was appropriate for me to continue since we disagreed on the fundamentals," Ryan told the paper.
Ryan has been unhappy with the way that Prime Minister Patrick Manning has been dealing with constitutional reform. When Manning first spoke of certain details at a PNM convention Ryan was one of the first people to publicly state his disagreement with some of the points that Manning raised.
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Ryan's last meeting with round table members was nearly a year ago and since then Manning has been holding a series of public education meetings to market his ideas for a constitution. One of the points he has been vigorously pushing is the idea of a justice minister.
Critics, including Chief Justice Ivor Archie, are concerned that such a move would erode the independence of the Judiciary. Some of those critics are members of his own party. Sources say that is why Manning has embarked on meeting with friendly crows to get "public endorsement" for his constitutional reform.
Manning has insisted that his proposed justice ministry would have "the responsibility to provide all that the Judiciary requires to be able to exercise independently their independent function".
On Wednesday, Ryan spoke about concerns raised by Archie about the potential impact of a separate justice ministry on judicial independence.
Read the story: CJ concerned about Independence of the Judiciary
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"The proposed Ministry of Justice, in my view, I don't like it. In fact, it happened at a point when I thought that things were really getting out of hand so to speak, and I was extremely unhappy that the Minister of Justice idea was put on the table and it seems to be getting some traction," he said.
At that point, I felt I needed to get out of here," Ryan said in reference to the round table, which is chaired by political scientist, Dr Hamid Ghany.
Ryan also agreed with former Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj who is wary of the merger of the powers of the President and the Prime Minister in the new draft Constitution.
"I am deeply worried about it and I have lost, I have taken every opportunity I have had in my columns...to warn people about that Constitution, the constitutional provisions relating to the President.
Read the story: It's time for an Executive President: PM Manning
"In fact, it's largely why I resigned from the round table...I didn't make a big political public issue about it but there came a time when I felt that because of the architecture, I was being induced in a way to support a number of provisions with which I didn't agree fundamentally."
Former President of Trinidad and Tobago and the country's most respected constitutional expert, Sir Ellis Clarke, has also resigned from the group drafting a new constitution.
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