Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The let­ter from the 21 Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MPs who sup­port En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s el­e­va­tion to prime min­is­ter will come in­to play af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley sub­mits his let­ter of res­ig­na­tion to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo on March 16.

This was the word from Lar­ry Lal­la SC yes­ter­day, af­ter Row­ley con­firmed he will leave of­fice on March 16.

Giv­ing his opin­ion of what would/should hap­pen, Lal­la said the me­chan­ics in­volve Row­ley prepar­ing a let­ter ad­dressed to the Pres­i­dent in­di­cat­ing he is re­sign­ing.

Lal­la added said this would trig­ger Sec­tion 76 (1) of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

“To use the lan­guage of the Con­sti­tu­tion - ‘the oc­ca­sion would arise for the ap­point­ment of a Prime Min­is­ter’. Once that ‘oc­ca­sion’ aris­es be­cause of the res­ig­na­tion let­ter, the is­sue then be­comes: Is there a Mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives that is a leader in that House of the par­ty that con­trols the ma­jor­i­ty of MPs,” Lal­la said.

Lal­la con­tin­ued, “That is where the let­ter that we’ve heard about - pur­port­ed­ly done by the PNM MPs ad­dressed to the Pres­i­dent say­ing that they sup­port Stu­art Young - comes in­to play. Once that let­ter in­di­cates that as of that date that the Prime Min­is­ter re­signs, that they sup­port MP Stu­art Young as their leader in that House (of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives), then he would be ap­point­ed the Prime Min­is­ter. Once those two things are sat­is­fied, the Pres­i­dent doesn’t have a dis­cre­tion - she has to ap­point him as Prime Min­is­ter.”

He not­ed that some peo­ple are of the view that in or­der for Young to be ap­point­ed PM, Dr Row­ley would have to give up the PNM’s po­lit­i­cal leader’s post and there should be a par­ty elec­tion to se­lect a leader.

Not­ing that this nar­ra­tive lies on the be­lief that the prime min­is­ter must be the leader of the par­ty that con­trols the ma­jor­i­ty of MPs in the House, Lal­la said, “That was so un­der the 1962 Con­sti­tu­tion but the word­ing was changed in the 1976 Con­sti­tu­tion and now, up­on the res­ig­na­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter, the next per­son to be ap­point­ed prime min­is­ter is the leader in that House of the par­ty that con­trols the ma­jor­i­ty.

“It doesn’t have to be the po­lit­i­cal leader of that par­ty. But it has to be the per­son iden­ti­fied as lead­ing that par­ty in that House - not na­tion­al­ly. Just in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, which is where the let­ter (from PNM MPs) we’re hear­ing about will come in­to play.”

In Jan­u­ary, when Row­ley an­nounced he would re­sign as Prime Min­is­ter, a sub­se­quent Par­lia­men­tary cau­cus in To­ba­go dis­cussed the is­sue and the names of Young and Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les arose. Eleven MPs vot­ed for Young to suc­ceed Row­ley and nine vot­ed for Beck­les. Row­ley, an­nounc­ing the sub­se­quent out­come, said the en­tire PNM cau­cus was in sup­port of Young.

But a let­ter lat­er cir­cu­lat­ed to MPs to sign on this was met with re­luc­tance by some Beck­les sup­port­ers. They were re­port­ed­ly un­der the im­pres­sion Row­ley was go­ing to demit of­fice as prime min­is­ter and PNM leader, but then re­alised he was go­ing to re­main po­lit­i­cal leader un­til PNM’s Sep­tem­ber con­ven­tion. The sit­u­a­tion was re­solved via meet­ings, in­clud­ing PNM’s Jan­u­ary Gen­er­al Coun­cil, where it was con­firmed Young had the sup­port of all 21 PNM MPs.

For­mer AG - Clum­sy sit­u­a­tion

Al­so ad­dress­ing the is­sue, Garvin Nicholas, a for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, stat­ed, “The West­min­ster Con­ven­tion is that the Monarch/Head of State ap­points the per­son who is deemed to have the con­fi­dence of the House, which is first de­ter­mined by the de ju­re Leader.

“The prac­tice is that the de ju­re Leader of the par­ty with the ma­jor­i­ty is deemed to com­mand the con­fi­dence of the House.”

Nicholas added, “This means that the Pres­i­dent will have to re­ly on the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of 76(1)(a) to mean the de fac­to Leader of the par­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives that com­mands the ma­jor­i­ty in or­der to ap­point some­one who is NOT the de ju­re Leader.”

He added, “If one fol­lows the con­ven­tion of oth­er Com­mon­wealth ju­ris­dic­tions, the ac­tu­al process should be that a for­mal res­ig­na­tion is ten­dered to the Pres­i­dent by Dr Row­ley and a sub­se­quent ap­point­ment of Mr Young by the Pres­i­dent if Her Ex­cel­len­cy is con­vinced Mr Young com­mands the con­fi­dence/sup­port of the ma­jor­i­ty of MPs in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. I imag­ine a signed let­ter of sup­port by the PNM MPs in the House will sat­is­fy Her Ex­cel­len­cy of that.”