Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has writ­ten to the Speak­er of the House seek­ing the re­fer­ral of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges over state­ments made about in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors.

Guardian Me­dia ob­tained both let­ters ad­dressed to Speak­er Jagdeo Singh, signed by Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les.

One let­ter refers to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s claim that two in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors ap­proached a se­nior Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor, seek­ing to trade their sup­port for the now-de­feat­ed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill in ex­change for per­son­al favours.

The oth­er let­ter ref­er­ences Padarath’s ac­cu­sa­tion that the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors sided with crim­i­nals over cit­i­zens by fail­ing to sup­port the ZOSO Bill.

In the let­ter re­gard­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment, Gon­za­les said the al­le­ga­tions are “se­ri­ous, reck­less and un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed.”

Gon­za­les added, “These state­ments con­sti­tute grave al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion, im­pro­pri­ety and mis­con­duct against mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, in­clud­ing In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, with­out the pro­vi­sion of any par­tic­u­lars ca­pa­ble of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, in­ves­ti­ga­tion or re­sponse. Such con­duct of­fends long-es­tab­lished par­lia­men­tary prac­tice and un­der­mines pub­lic con­fi­dence in the in­tegri­ty of Par­lia­ment as an in­sti­tu­tion.”

Gon­za­les wrote that it is a fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple that mem­bers of par­lia­ment should not use their po­si­tion to make ac­cu­sa­tions of se­ri­ous wrong­do­ing against oth­er par­lia­men­tar­i­ans with­out bring­ing a sub­stan­tive mo­tion or sub­mit­ting the mat­ter to the ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­i­ties.

He said, “To do oth­er­wise is to abuse par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege and to ex­pose the Par­lia­ment to pub­lic con­tempt.”

He list­ed four “con­se­quences” of the Prime Min­is­ter’s ac­cu­sa­tion against the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors.

“They have im­put­ed cor­rupt mo­tives to mem­bers of Par­lia­ment with­out due process. They have un­der­mined the dig­ni­ty and au­thor­i­ty of Par­lia­ment in the eyes of the pub­lic.

“They have abused the pro­tec­tion of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege to ad­vance al­le­ga­tions that should prop­er­ly be the sub­ject of in­ves­ti­ga­tion or a sub­stan­tive mo­tion.

“They have brought the House and its mem­bers in­to odi­um and dis­re­pute, con­trary to the pur­pose and spir­it of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege.”

Gon­za­les said as a re­sult, “I re­spect­ful­ly sub­mit that a pri­ma fa­cie case of breach of priv­i­lege and con­tempt of Par­lia­ment has been made out against the Prime Min­is­ter and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Siparia. Ac­cord­ing­ly, I re­quest that this mat­ter be re­ferred to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges for in­ves­ti­ga­tion and de­ter­mi­na­tion.”

Mean­while, in a sec­ond let­ter ques­tion­ing Padarath’s con­duct, Gon­za­les told the House Speak­er that in a me­dia re­lease is­sued on Jan­u­ary 29, the Cou­va South MP ac­cused in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors of main­tain­ing a sta­tus quo that ben­e­fits crim­i­nals, and of choos­ing crim­i­nal com­fort over the lives of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

Gon­za­les told Singh, “Mr Speak­er, these state­ments amount to grave al­le­ga­tions of im­prop­er mo­tive, bad faith and com­plic­i­ty with crim­i­nal in­ter­ests against Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment for the man­ner in which they ex­er­cised their con­sti­tu­tion­al du­ties in the Sen­ate. The al­le­ga­tions were made with­out par­tic­u­lars, with­out iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of any in­di­vid­ual sen­a­tor, and with­out re­course to a sub­stan­tive mo­tion or re­fer­ral to the ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­i­ties.”

He added, “To ac­cuse in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors of sid­ing with crim­i­nals, en­abling crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, or act­ing out of per­son­al in­ter­est be­cause of how they vot­ed is a se­ri­ous abuse of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege and un­der­mines the in­de­pen­dence and in­tegri­ty of Par­lia­ment.”

Like in the oth­er let­ter to Singh, Gon­za­les list­ed four “con­se­quences” of Padarath’s com­ments.

“It im­putes cor­rupt, crim­i­nal­ly aligned and bad-faith mo­tives to in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors for the law­ful ex­er­cise of their par­lia­men­tary func­tions.

“It un­der­mines the dig­ni­ty, au­thor­i­ty and in­de­pen­dence of the Sen­ate as a con­sti­tu­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion.

“It abus­es par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege by mak­ing se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions with­out due process or the safe­guards of a sub­stan­tive mo­tion.

“It brings the Par­lia­ment and its mem­bers in­to odi­um and dis­re­pute, con­trary to the pur­pose and spir­it of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege.”

He asked that Padarath be al­so re­ferred to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­lege for in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Af­ter ob­tain­ing the let­ters, Guardian Me­dia reached out to Gon­za­les, who said: “I am seek­ing to re­fer the two of them in or­der to pro­tect the dig­ni­ty of the Par­lia­ment from an un­hinged Prime Min­is­ter.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so sought to get re­spons­es from the Prime Min­is­ter and Padarath.

On­ly Padarath re­spond­ed with, “Bring it on! The Gov­ern­ment has no in­ten­tion of danc­ing to the tune of the PNM A Team or B Team!”

Guardian Me­dia tried on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions to get the Prime Min­is­ter to pro­vide more de­tails as it per­tains to the ac­cu­sa­tion lev­elled against the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors. How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar is yet to re­veal names. At­tempts to speak with her out­side the Red House yes­ter­day were al­so un­suc­cess­ful.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors have force­ful­ly re­ject­ed the claim and chal­lenged the Prime Min­is­ter to bring her ev­i­dence.

On Thurs­day, ques­tions were al­so sent to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, who has con­sti­tu­tion­al au­thor­i­ty over the In­de­pen­dent Sen­ate bench. How­ev­er, the Pres­i­dent is yet to re­spond.

Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges

The Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges acts as a qua­si-ju­di­cial body.

Its pri­ma­ry job is to pro­tect the in­tegri­ty, dig­ni­ty and pow­ers of the House by in­ves­ti­gat­ing al­leged “con­tempts” or breach­es of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege.

The com­mit­tee’s role is to safe­guard par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege by pro­tect­ing free speech in the House, while hold­ing mem­bers ac­count­able for abus­es of that priv­i­lege, pre­serv­ing the dig­ni­ty of Par­lia­ment, and ad­dress­ing any con­duct that un­der­mines the au­thor­i­ty or prop­er func­tion­ing of the Leg­is­la­ture.

Priv­i­lege com­plaints fol­low a set process. A mem­ber rais­es the is­sue at the ear­li­est op­por­tu­ni­ty. The Speak­er then rules on whether a pri­ma fa­cie case ex­ists and, if so, refers it to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee. The com­mit­tee in­ves­ti­gates, hears ev­i­dence and re­spons­es, and re­ports its find­ings with rec­om­men­da­tions.

The House then votes to adopt the re­port, with any sanc­tions on­ly tak­ing ef­fect af­ter that ap­proval.

The com­mit­tee is typ­i­cal­ly chaired by the Speak­er of the House and in­cludes mem­bers from both sides of the aisle.