TERRENCE W FARRELL
PREDICTABLY, IN this bacchanal country with its toxic political culture, the award of silk (senior counsel) has once again erupted into controversy.
I had written before on the award of silk. First when, under the UNC-PP regime, the then prime minister awarded silk to herself and to her attorney general, who himself was supposed to advise on the awards and do so objectively.
The self-conferral by the prime minister was unprecedented. The conferral on a sitting AG was not, having been done before under the PNM. Whether deserved or not, it is a conflict of interest and morally corrupt to grant oneself an honour or national award. I suggested they wear sackcloth, not silk!
In a later commentary, I fully supported and urged the adoption of the 2015 LATT Silk Report, which had recommended reform of the award by, inter alia, removing it from prime ministerial involvement altogether.
Ironically, the then president of the LATT Council, who had guided the deliberations within LATT, was Reginald Armour, our current AG. His being in government has clearly made not a whit of difference to the political patronage and bias which infects the current process.
Last year's awards brought some drama, including Israel Khan's lawsuit, which, as I understand it, charges that the process is unconstitutional. Those awards were distinguished by the award to two of the President's relatives, some notable omissions, and the unquestionably cynical award to a well-known member of the UNC. Cynical precisely because, whether it was deserved or not, given the inherent political bias in the process, it would serve to help sustain a claim of impartiality, a claim duly and predictably advanced by the Prime Minister in defending the recent awards.
This year's awards have brought fresh controversy in that, allegedly, at least one name seems to have been 'scratched off' and another inserted. The LATT and its president have been drawn into the bacchanal, since the LATT made recommendations on the list sent to it by the AG, which recommendations were informed by the views of unnamed senior counsel.
LATT's president has been accused of 'bad faith' in involving herself in a process which the LATT had rightly condemned. LATT had gone so far as to say that if the process remained unreformed, the award should be abolished.
The late Basdeo Panday had told us that 'Politics has a morality of its own.' That characterisation is certainly true of the practice of politics, well-known for back-stabbing, lying and hypocrisy, here and indeed everywhere. In some places people get poisoned or their planes blown up. But surely there are some areas of national life which should remain uninfected, if not pristine.
Our national awards and the award of silk should be such. They are intended to identify the best of who we are and who we can be, people whom we can all admire and who our youth can aspire to be like. And that means that the process of identifying and honouring such people should conform to accepted standards of
