By Clint Chan Tack Saturday, September 19 2009

CHAGUANAS West MP Jack Warner and Congress of the People (COP) political leader Winston Dookeran yesterday joined the growing chorus of citizens supporting Chief Justice Ivor Archie’s view that the working document on constitutional reform threatens to undermine the independence of the Judiciary. The Chief Justice sounded this warning when he addressed the opening of the new law term on Wednesday.

Speaking with reporters at the Breakfast Shed in Port-of-Spain, where they met to discuss several issues of national importance, Dookeran said: “I believe that is a step which cannot be condoned at all. It is a threat to the independence of the Judiciary and I think that is a very serious statement coming from him (Archie).”

Warner agreed with Dookeran, stating that a collective stand must be taken by all right thinking citizens on this issue. “I think that unless we take a stand, this thing will come like a thief in the night when it is too late for all of us. I want to commend the Chief Justice very highly,” he declared. Describing the document as “scandalous,” Warner added: “We have to carry the struggle right through until this thing has been repealed.”

He said while St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves plans to hold a referendum on November 25 on a new constitution for that country, “we in Trinidad are not prepared to do that. Something has to be wrong.”

Over the last month, Prime Minister Patrick Manning has been speaking about various aspects of the working document in a series of PNM public meetings throughout the country. On September 3, Gonsalves’ government won a vote in the St Vincent parliament to replace that country’s 1979 constitution with a new one. The opposition New Democratic Party is calling upon Vincentians to vote against the new constitution on November 25.