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Panday shows his hand
June 4, 2000
By Denis Solomon
Prime Minister Basdeo Panday, in a letter to the President of the Inter-American Press Association, has dispelled rumours that he was going to relent and sign the Declaration of Chapultepec.
In his letter the prime minister makes the ridiculous claim that the Declaration is in 'patent conflict' with the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago. He says that it places journalists above the law of the land. The freedoms enshrined in our Constitution, including freedom of the press, he says, 'are all qualified by the caveat "except through due process". This would apply, for example, to a journalist cited for contempt of court for violating a court order." The Declaration, he complained, was also silent on the Constitutional right to privacy.
Mr. Panday, though a lawyer, is wrong on every count. The Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago applies the caveat only to the first of the rights and freedoms listed in the Constitution, namely 'the right of the individual to life, liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property, and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law'. None of the other rights and freedoms in the list contains that phrase.
The obligation of the media to obey a court order is not imposed by the Constitution. It is part of the common law that is practised in Commonwealth countries, including Trinidad and Tobago. Everyone, including the State, must obey a court order. Nobody is above the law, and any declaration that sought to put anyone there would be attacking the roots of civilisation. This is not the intent of the Chapultepec Declaration.
Mr. Panday did not say what kind of court order he thought journalists might want to violate. He might have made a slightly stronger case if he had cited the sentence in the Declaration that says 'no journalist may be forced to reveal his sources of information'. But the prime minister is probably thinking of the gagging writs so easily obtained here in incipient libel cases. His ministers have recently brought a flood of libel suits against newspapers, mainly for having said that the ministers misled Parliament.
The courts may in fact order a journalist to reveal his sources. But in general they do not, and when they do, journalists sometimes defy the order and go to jail. But it is not the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago that gives the courts this power; nor has Mr. Panday said that he wants the power to be exercised. If he does not, he could sign the Declaration and add its moral force to the practice of the courts, or even introduce legislation to make the practice mandatory. There is nothing in the Constitution to stop him. This is no doubt part of the intent of the Declaration. In the context of the evolution of Press freedom, it is an entirely legitimate intent.
Mr. Panday's present argument against the Declaration is a new one, and he obviously thinks it is stronger if he bases it falsely on the Constitution rather than on the common law. Presumably courts in other signatory countries have similar powers, which have not stopped their governments from signing the Declaration. His initial argument was simply that the Declaration did not condemn 'lies, half truths and innuendoes'.
In his letter the prime minister went so far as to propose a rival 'Declaration of Port of Spain, embodying a code of Practice and a Code of Ethics for media practitioners, that need not impede the media's pursuit of truth, and to which all critical estates would be signatories'.
This is in direct opposition to the Chapultepec Declaration, which says 'the respect for ethical and professional values may not be imposed. These are the exclusive responsibility of journalists and the media. In a free society, it is public opinion that rewards or punishes'.
Copyright © Denis Solomon
