REGGIE DUMAS FOUGHT IN VAIN

EVEN in his last days, patriot Reginald Dumas was fighting for good governance.

Dumas was challenging the planned removal of the system of service commissions and had gone to court over the composition of the Police Service Commission.

He was essentially asking the penetrative question: Who guards the guardians?

When Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley announced plans last year to abolish service commissions, Dumas queried which independent body would appoint teachers, judges, police and other public officers.

He also raised a red flag about the dilution of the separation of powers.

This was just one aspect of Dumas’ fierce nationalism, and his insistence on adherence to the constitution, especially independent institutions.

By his life’s work, Dumas – a scholar, experienced diplomat and senior public servant – had become the conscience of the nation, a singularly respected and honoured citizen.

He monitored shifts in the landscape of governance and spoke out fearlessly, each time proposing solutions and urging national consultations.

He was not happy with the politicisation of independent bodies.

He blamed politics for the decline in the effectiveness of the Integrity Commission.

As a public-spirited citizen, he legally disputed the appointment of two members of the Police Service Commission a decade ago.

In his affidavit, he said: “I was and am concerned as a citizen who has for many years written and spoken publicly about the need for good governance in the society, particularly respect for our institutions, such as our constitution.

“I am, therefore, acting in what I consider to be in the public interest.”

He would have been aghast at the Government’s brazen tampering with the merit list in the appointment of a Commissioner of Police.

The watering down of the procurement law would have troubled Dumas, since he was a stickler for transparency and accountability in public affairs.

He was a founder of the local arm of Transparency International.

The undermining of key independent institutions, surreptitious removal of President of the Industrial Court Deborah Thomas-Felix, and stacking of agencies with political cronies would have irked him.

He spoke of a pattern of “greater control of the institutions of the State and a consequent enhancement of personal and political power.”

He pooh-poohed talk of constitutional reform.

What was taking place, he stressed, “is an attempt to undermine true democracy using a fig leaf of apparently democratic procedures which barely conceals a private, anti-democratic agenda for constitutional dictatorship.”

He was a campaigner for public participation in the democracy, unity among the people, and the nation achieving its fullest potential.

He dared the country to indicate “whether political independence has been translated into independence of the mind and the forms of governance we need for our ordered development.”

He advised the nation to be “extremely vigilant” and to display order and discipline.

Emotion, he reasoned, “is fine, but an excess of it permits those who divide us to divide us more effectively.”

Dumas was without peer in his devotion to his land and defence of and advocacy for its institutions and personnel.

But with the current state of Trinidad and Tobago, much of his life’s work may have gone in vain.

He has died amid an unprecedented decay of public institutions and authoritarian rule by the authorities.

Reggie Dumas deserved better.