I stand by my Report

Stating that he stood by his EBC Report, Chairman of the Commission of Inquiry Justice Lennox Deyalsingh  yesterday also stressed that he took “full responsibility for the outcome” of the Report. The Report was challenged by the EBC and on Wednesday several of its recommendations were quashed by Justice Allan Mendonca. While Mendonca agreed with some of the findings and conclusions of the Commission of Inquiry — conceding that the EBC lacked vision and that it did not quickly investigate, properly, complaints of irregularites, the judge felt that the Commission of Inquiry was not empowered to make several of the recommendations that it made. Deyalsingh said that he accepted the decision of the Court even though he did not totally agree with it. He said that as Chairman of the Commission of Inquiry and the one who guided the Commission on legal matters, he took full responsibility. The other members were not at fault in any matter, he stressed. But stating that the court matter involved  ‘procedure’ and not ‘substance’, Deyalsingh said the society had suffered from the emphasis of ‘procedure’ over ‘substance’. “And it would continue to do so unless we see that a decision on procedure should not ipso facto abort or nullify a finding in substance,” he said. “The Commission was given a job to do. We did it honestly, without fear or favour. That is the most anyone could have expected of us,” he said.

Deyalsingh stated that he had always worked on the principle that it was far better to tell the truth and be rejected than to hold back and be accepted. “That Report contains my ‘inner truths’ and I stand by it”. Noting that the Commission of Inquiry was not a court of law “concerned only with the issues waved by the parties before it”, Deyalsingh said the Commission of Inquiry’s mandate was to inquire into the workings of the EBC within its terms of reference. That, he said, involved an approach which went beyond what he termed ‘the information mode’ and took the Commission of Inquiry into ‘the wisdom mode’. The ‘information mode’ entailed the acquisition and evaluation of  information, while the ‘wisdom mode’ called not merely processing information, analytically and sequentially, but the “emptying and quieting of the mind, the application of the heart and the alchemy of reason and feeling. You are standing back and viewing the whole, disconcerting what matters and what does not, weighing the meaning and depth of things,” Deyalsingh opined. He said this was the approach that the Commission of Inquiry adopted and if it was held to be wrong in any way, then “so be it”. He added that what “we were seeing” was democracy at work. There was public concern about the EBC, a Commission of Inquiry was appointed, the EBC disagreed with the Commission of Inquiry’s report and it exercised its right to go to the Court for a review, the Court adjudicated on the matter. “I accept the decision even though I may not totally agree with it,” he said.

Deyalsingh stressed that while those affected by the Commission of Inquiry’s report may feel vindicated by the Court’s decision, it was never a matter of winning or losing. “Nothing is either/ or,” he said, adding that it didn’t concern him who won or lost in people’s view. “At the end of the day these exercises are beneficial to the people of Trinidad and Tobago as a whole because what flows from them helps to make people more aware. Asked why, having regard to the fact that there was a specific constitutional mechanism for the removal of an EBC Commissioner, that the Commission of Inquiry via its recommendations sought to impose on the EBC Commissioners an unimplementable requirement, that is, they all resign,  Deyalsingh said he was fully aware that the Constitution “protected” the EBC. But, he said, the Commission of Inquiry felt its job was to make recommendations which it saw fit, and it was not about implementability. Asked whether in the light of the censure of the EBC by his Report and to some extent by the observations of Mendonca that the Commission lacked vision, whether the constitutional mechinism for discharging the Commis-sioners should be invoked, Deyalsingh said he had no views on that. “That is a matter for the authorities (the President). We have done our job and what follows is for the relevant authority,” he stated.