December 2014


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Citation: His Excellency Anthony Thomas Aquinas Carmona S.C., Degree of Doctor of Laws (LLD)

Chancellor, the now immortal words, “Powers you think I have, I do not. Powers you think I do not have, I do,” spoken on March 18, 2013 after taking the oath as President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago seized the attention, electrified the imagination of the national community and became etched into our history books. Was this a rebuke to a nation adrift or was this a direct appeal to us citizens to think about our constitutional rights and responsibilities? He made the point that our humanity confers on us certain rights and freedoms but, at the same time, imposes on us all, corresponding responsibilities.

His Excellency, President Anthony Thomas Aquinas Carmona is currently the 5th president of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. He is the eldest of six children born in the coastal village of Los Charros, Palo Seco. After attending the Santa Flora Government Primary School, followed by Presentation College, San Fernando, His Excellency earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and Political Science from the Mona Campus of The University of the West Indies in 1977 and a Bachelor of Laws from the Cave Hill Campus in Barbados in 1981. He ultimately completed his formal training in Law in 1983 at the Hugh Wooding Law School.

His Excellency’s legal career as a prosecutor at both national and international levels spans some 21 years. He served at the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions from 1983-2000 during which time he functioned as Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions and as Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions. His Excellency did not simply blaze his own trail, however. Making history by being the first to successfully conduct appeals on behalf of the State, he would go on to provide a blueprint for State attorneys by also being instrumental in the preparation of a code of conduct for State prosecutions.

From 2001 to 2004, he held the post of Appeals Counsel in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), a United Nations court of law dealing with war crimes that took place during the conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s. The Tribunal is credited with irreversibly changing the landscape of international humanitarian law. His Excellency also went on to serve as Appeals Counsel for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). As Appeals Counsel, he distinguished himself by the successful prosecution and preparation of appeals on behalf of the Office of the Prosecutor against high ranking war criminals.

In 2002, His Excellency was conferred with the status of Senior Counsel and two years later was appointed a High Court Judge in the Supreme Court of Trinidad & Tobago.

His Excellency was also the Legal Advisor in criminal law to the then President Arthur N.R. Robinson on issues relating to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and participated in meetings of the Preparatory Committee on the establishment of the ICC. In 2011, he was elected a Judge of the ICC and was formally sworn in on March 9, 2012.

In addition to his outstanding contribution to the legal profession, His Excellency has a wealth of experience as an educator, both in Trinidad and Tobago and in Jamaica. He was a teacher at the primary and secondary school levels between 1972 and 1975, first at St. Hugh’s High School and Merle Grove High School, Kingston, Jamaica; then in Trinidad and Tobago, at the Palo Seco Government and the Fyzabad Anglican Secondary Schools. At the tertiary level, he taught Business Law at the San Fernando Technical Institute (1983-1985), and also lectured in the Department of Language and Linguistics and was a Tutor in the Department of Government at The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.

His Excellency is also passionate about the cultural traditions of the communities from which he emerged. He has embraced the village parang with its Spanish roots as well as the national instrument – the steel pan and in a former incarnation was also a calypso performer.

Chancellor, for long, distinguished and meritorious service to the national, regional and wider international community, I present His Excellency, President Anthony Thomas Aquinas Carmona and ask that by the authority vested in you by the Senate and Council of The University of the West Indies, you confer on him the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.

We graduands must salute our dear families, friends and supporters who have been an invaluable source of support and encouragement to us all, and personally, this includes my own wife Reema; my children, Christian and Anura; my parents and mentors, Dennis and Barbara Carmona, and other members of my family.

I have been a public servant all my professional life and in all my years of public service, there was never any specific objective to seek definitive accolades. Maybe I was not that ambitious, possibly because it was not just me. But I did have a strong commitment to succeed and to perform competently and be part of positive change, whatever my endeavour. Humbling, it is, to be here today at the St. Augustine campus of The University of the West Indies to receive the award of Doctor Honoris Causa of Laws. It is intimidating to now find myself added to the pantheon of distinguished Caribbean men and women on whom this award has been conferred by the University during its 66 years of existence.

As much as today I am receiving a Doctorate in Laws, I am ever vigilant in maintaining my doctorate in common sense. Receiving an honorary doctorate, in my humble view, must trigger a life thesis, a unique unprecedented idea that can either make a positive difference in one’s life, or a nation’s soul. It must have as its imperative, betterment for all, not transient, not esoteric, but leaving most of all, a legacy that is a statement of action, not a statement of theory.

It also gives me particular pleasure to be sharing the stage with of one of my favourite performing artistes, fellow Honorary Graduand, Mrs. McCartha Linda Sandy-Lewis –Calypso Rose. I well remember how her 1977 Road March-winning calypso “Gimme More Tempo” pulled even those of us preparing for our final examinations as undergraduates away from the books and into the fetes. Being a Southerner, she gave us definitive significance, and a sense of ownership and belonging to the national identity. I remember, “I going down San Fernando, down they have plenty tempo. Hatters Steel Orchestra sounding sweet. I going and join San Fernandians and roll on Coffee Street. Give me more, Sweet tempo.” Her march into our culture was even more pivotal. Human rights is often looked at in terms of atrocities and man’s inhumanity to man. Equal rights are often assessed in the context of political and economic subsets, but not necessarily on the basis of culture and art form. The fight for equal rights can, and did take place in the labyrinth of culture, dominated by men who saw women as mere back-up singers and dancers dancing on a stage. In that world of denial, “Dr. Calyspo Rose” was the tsunami. Music can be a force of social change, and Dr. McCartha Linda Sandy-Lewis, together with her sister, Singing Francine, changed that cultural demographic that has since spawned many prominent female calypsonians and soca artistes.

If ‘Fire Fire’ still has the ability to make even the most staid of us jump up and take a chip, our delight in Calypso Rose’s genius should therefore not blind us to the ways in which her music helped to promote the women’s social agenda.

The influence that The University of the West Indies has exerted on my life over the past four decades is a profound one. Having studied at Mona, Jamaica, and Cave Hill, Barbados, and having been a tutor and lecturer at St. Augustine, Trinidad, UWI has played an all-encompassing role in the shaping of my persona and sensibility as a West Indian.

It was study at UWI Mona that deepened my understanding of the nobility and the frailties of the human condition, and this understanding still informs my responses to the challenges that we all face on a daily basis in our private and public lives. I can still recall the magic of climbing Blue Mountain Peak, the beauty of the white sands of Negril and Dunns River Falls. Catching crayfish in Spanish Town River, and having taught in Trench Town during a UWI summer initiative, I came to understand, in more ways than one, the hurt and despair of the underprivileged and the voiceless, and the need for compassion in our daily lives. In Jamaica, I experienced democratic socialism at work, and celebrated the vision that it offered of a just, equitable and fair society.

At UWI, Cave Hill, my lecturers, among them Professor Ralph Carnegie , a constitutional luminary and Professor Telford Georges, Dean of the Faculty of Law, inculcated in us all the concept of good governance, and to be alert to how the distribution of power and resources either promotes or threatens the stability of societies. It entrenched my commitment to natural justice and the rule of law as the best defence against the chaos and anarchy that would inevitably attend the arbitrary exercise of power and the rejection of due process. The Barbadian society taught me what it means to be truly civil and respectful about equipoise and these qualities have informed my responses as a prosecutor, a judge and now as President. At UWI, St. Augustine, in my capacity as a senior tutor in the Department of Government and a part time lecturer in the Department of Language and Linguistics, I came to the full realization that being a tutor or a lecturer meant not only bringing your charges to your level, but ensuring that the environmental impetus is there for them to go beyond the teacher’s competencies.

It is for this reason, during my educational sojourn through the Caribbean region as a student, when asked my nationality, I would describe myself as a TRIN-JAM-BAGE! Today, because UWI then represented a model for REAL integration, I can still call on Queen’s Counsel, top doctors and professionals in every one of the Eastern Caribbean islands. We were and are still a band of brothers, and I would regret if that sense of pride and self-worth that this engenders is lost because the integrating impulse of a regional university has begun to diminish. I do not know if we can counter this trend, but one possible way, may be to insist that all students spend at least one semester in each of the three campus territories.

The greatest gift that The University of the West Indies has offered us all is the ability and capacity to engage in critical thinking, but we must engage that process. A critical thinker has been defined as, “one who thinks open-mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing , as needs be, their assumptions, implications and practical consequences and figuring out solutions to complex problems…”

Critical thinking, then, is the skill that has enabled our West Indian scholars and thinkers to be recognised and celebrated on a world stage. It is the skill to which you have been exposed while at this University, and, one which, as professionals, you will be expected to employ. We are fortunate to have an Institute of Critical Thinking, and the Confucius Institute, and perhaps what is required is a Department of Philosophy, to bring a sense of meaning to our lives as scholars, as citizens and as patriots of this great region.

Socrates, the great classical Greek teacher, developed the oldest, and still the most powerful, teaching tactic for fostering critical thinking. In Socratic teaching, “the focus is on asking question, not giving answers. This method models an inquiring, probing mind. The art of questioning is important to excellence of thought.”

My fellow graduates, to be a critical thinker is to adopt a very demanding role. It is, however, the role that our position as graduates of this distinguished institution demands that we assume urgently as we grapple with the special challenges facing our small island developing states. In this respect I consider our youth to be a distinct asset. In fact, I have often regretted that the Trinidad and Tobago Constitution does not allow any political party or the President to appoint anyone younger than twenty-five to the Senate. Many countries in the world are lowering the voting age from eighteen, to seventeen to sixteen. And we need to seriously consider that option, in a world where I have found that the Youth Mock Parliamentary Debates, and the Youth Model United Nations, bring intellectual luminescence that is sometimes lacking in our Parliament. I therefore believe that the wealth of information available to you, together with your incisive intellect make you perfectly capable of arriving at appropriate solutions to current problems facing the Caribbean. The question is how do we facilitate a conversation that would help us to devise outcomes to which we can all commit?

There is a continuous stream of opinions on governance issues expressed every day, not only in our Parliament and in the print media, but also on talk radio and social media. Regrettably, in all these fora, like-minded persons tend to recycle and restate their agreed opinions. As graduates you have a responsibility to bring a more enlightened, dispassionate approach to the discourse on issues of national importance. We have to replace our focus on personalities with a focus on ideas, so that opinionated and self-serving pronouncements and forms of cyber-bullying are replaced by thoughtful dialogue and open-minded conversation.

Social media websites are no longer performing an envisaged function of creating a positive communication link among friends, family and professionals. It is a veritable battleground where insults fly from the human quiver, damaging lives, destroying self-esteem and a person’s sense of self-worth.

T.S. Elliot’s concern is mirrored in his poem, “The Wasteland,” which speaks to our dark side. What are you doing about this young graduands? Will you continue that mean streak so prevalent in our society because you have got the power and are engrossed in that obsession that your culture in the region calls ‘me, myself and I’? I can talk about fancy change, use nice words; even engage in tangled verbosity that the intelligent are prone to do. Enough is enough. Transformation is required, no, it is demanded of you, and you can make a difference by sending a different message, this evening, tonight and tomorrow morning.

You are about to enter the world of work and what is your philosophy? If you do not have one, it’s not too late to craft one, something that directs you to a sense of purposefulness. Will I be just another cog in the wheel? Am I prepared to be acknowledged as a mere statistic in the employment rate or add to the productivity levels of your country, improve its competitiveness ratio and its innovation index? You must stand for something. It does not have to be grand but it must be a positive that brings light to someone’s darkness. If I may share two aspects of my life’s philosophy, and you may or may not draw from them – I live by a philosophy of my dispensability and I have exercised that philosophy throughout my life, and it has given me the confidence and the independence to make decisions that, in clear conscience, are fair and just. Additionally, I always try to be a better person today, not a greater person than I was yesterday.

The student today is the executive of tomorrow and what kind of executive would you be? Nurture a proper moral compass and ensure when you are in the boardroom, (and you will be one day, sooner than you think) ensure that you invoke standards of accountability and integrity that are too often mouthed and not acted out in the world of commerce.

We can all stop being distasteful to each other and finally be exemplars to our young people because as adults we continue to be ill-mannered, discourteous and vengeful. Remember, your future employer will go into that Wasteland, the social media sites to see if you are an active participant of what should NOT be done, and your brilliance and honours degree will fade against a background, and the litmus test of simple good manners.

As graduates of The UWI, it is expected that you will assume positions of leadership in both the private and public sectors. Those of you who choose to enter the private sector will be told that corporations have a ‘special responsibility’ over and beyond the business of making money; that while they need to promote economic growth, their business practices must also reflect a valuing of ethical principles, standards and conduct.

How does that affect you as lawyers and engineers?

As future legal professionals you must be aware of the role that you can play in making a positive difference to the lives of those around you. Recently, on October 8, 2014, just two weeks ago, I was invited to, and spoke at the Eminent Speaker Series held at the Cave Hill Campus where I discussed Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as it pertains to corporations and their governance. In an article Responsibility Matters 161 NLJ 23, Peter Forshaw recognised the increasing need for CSR by law firms. He submits that, “The concept of CSR remains a tentative notion within the legal profession. Legal practitioners are not only required to adopt CSR practices in their firms by providing pro bono work. They must also provide cogent advice to their clients regarding social responsibility, not only in their operations but also in relation to the litigation tactics the corporation wishes to adopt.”

Similarly, you engineers must take responsibility for the negative consequences of both technical and administrative decisions. Suggested examples of this include placing public safety and interest above all considerations and obligations; voluntarily assuming the task of educating the public about important consequences of various technological and scientific developments; and designing and developing sustainable technologies. The message is simple, you do not have to micro manage, but rest assured, if you have to engage in nuts and bolts issues, pick up your wrench and either fix the machine or dismantle it.

I emphasize however, that without PSR (Personal Social Responsibility), there can be no CSR. It means that for any good to come out of today, it has to start with you. David Bercuson has said that training allows you to respond in a predictable manner to predictable situations; education on the other hand allows you to respond to unpredictable situations in a coherent manner. As graduates of The University of the West Indies you are now able to take the knowledge you have gained and adapt it to the myriad challenges that you may encounter in both your professional and private lives. This however would only be possible if you give yourselves over to critical thinking and analysis. As agents of positive change you must free yourselves from the herd mentality. You can no longer ‘just go with the flow.’

My fellow graduates, CSR is a noble principle, but one that you may find is often dismissed as mere rhetoric in the pursuit of greater and greater financial gain. And yet, if we think of ourselves as developing countries, we must surely accept that as essential as economic growth is to the development process, true and lasting development is about people.

Too often when unethical practices are revealed, provided they are not illegal, we hear the rejoinder “is business.” The ‘Smartman’ traditionally remains one of our cult figures, and there is the tacit acceptance that principles such as honesty, integrity and respect for others may be properly sacrificed on the altar of material gain.

It is certainly true that many corporations do demonstrate an understanding of what it means to be socially responsible. Support for the arts, especially the sponsorship of steelbands, is already a well-established form of CSR in Trinidad and Tobago. Other sectors have also benefited from the support of socially responsible businesses. Yet there are too many businesses and corporations that continue to fall short of the mark in this respect. Should you find yourself working in such an environment, it is incumbent on you to bring your critical thinking skills into play to address this failing. As I have said before, corporate social responsibility goes beyond giving jerseys to football teams. For those of us living in small island developing states, CSR must be directed towards the acceleration of our development goals, and most especially, to expanding the capabilities of our citizens, so that even the most disadvantaged members of our society may enjoy what the UN has described as “long, creative lives in a safe environment.’ Tokenism therefore has no place in a genuine philosophy of Corporate Social Responsibility. We as graduates, must recognize that transformational economic development and growth must be accompanied by quality of life, human development, and a philosophy that is connected to a human social compact, and we have not been successful sufficiently enough in bridging that existing gap.

My fellow graduates, no good ever came without sacrifice. If you gain the freedom of thought and action associated with critical thinking and analysis, you lose the convenience of ignorance. But ignorance is bliss only for the unenlightened. If you wish to move from citizen to patriot as I urge you to do, you have a moral responsibility to reinvest in your country just as your country has invested in you.

As a graduate, you must become a disciple and return to the age of enlightenment and not to an era of entitlement. Do not become a beggar’s maid like so many adults in Trinidad and Tobago are becoming. “Somebody is going to take care of my problem,” – that has become our everyday solution! You have the tools to arrest this and I have to warn you every benefit has a burden and if that benefit comes without a burden, then something is wrong with that benefit. Did not someone say “anything worth having is not easily gained?”

We allow ourselves to be sucked in and we have become a herd in a stampede either to be corralled or taken over the precipice. You are young and bright and you must become that guiding light of intervention.

There is a crisis in intellectual discussions in Trinidad and Tobago. We are society in adult distress, and we have become “occasion persons.” The commentators and the writers are bulldogs in a ring, bruising each other in that clash of professional egos. The disingenuous and the uncouth have a field day because of their unfettered access to fine print or a microphone. We desperately need a breed of new writers and commentators who will not engage the nation with “the same ole, same ole” dialogue and that obsession with self, or is it self-aggrandizement? We await a gush of fresh breeze, and you must be that fresh breeze.

And so, in closing, let me repeat what an honour it is to stand among you as a fellow graduate today. Your success is proof of UWI’s commitment to its stated mission to be “a significant contributor to global intellectual growth and human development.” Please accept my warmest congratulations on your outstanding achievements and know that I leave you confident in the knowledge that the learning and the skills that you have acquired over the past several years will be put to the greater service of our country, our region and the community of nations.

I thank you all for your attention.