PNM to refer AG to Privileges Committee over “hot mic” remark

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) plans to re­fer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie to Par­lia­ment’s Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee over com­ments he made dur­ing a “hot mic” mo­ment in the Low­er House on No­vem­ber 21.

Speak­ing at an Op­po­si­tion me­dia brief­ing to­day, Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les said the re­fer­ral has be­come nec­es­sary, de­clar­ing that it is time for AG Je­re­mie to be ex­posed for what he de­scribed as his per­sis­tent use of deroga­to­ry lan­guage in Par­lia­ment.

Gon­za­les said on Fri­day the AG said to some­one in the House, “Hush your mouth boy, why you ain't take your lit­tle man?”

A clip of this has gone vi­ral on so­cial me­dia.

Gon­za­les added, “whether it was said to a mem­ber of the op­po­si­tion, whether it was said to a mem­ber of the gov­ern­ment, it does not take away the se­ri­ous­ness of the state­ment and how un­be­com­ing it was for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment to con­duct them­selves in this par­tic­u­lar way.”

The Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip said he was not sur­prised to hear what the AG said, as he claimed that is Je­re­mie’s usu­al con­duct in the Low­er House.

“I will file a mo­tion of priv­i­leges against the Ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al on this mat­ter. Even though he's en­ti­tled to come to the House as a Sen­a­tor, he is not an elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive, and I am fed up of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al com­ing to the elect­ed House and dis­re­spect­ing elect­ed mem­bers of Par­lia­ment.”

Gon­za­les said the AG has in the past ex­posed that he is mo­ti­vat­ed by vengeance against his for­mer PNM par­ty.

“It per­haps should wake up the con­scious­ness of all cit­i­zens that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is some­one that you should pay close at­ten­tion to. Be­cause in one of the very ear­ly pro­ceed­ings in this 13th Par­lia­ment, he point­ed to some of us in the op­po­si­tion and he said, I am com­ing for you, I am com­ing for you, I am com­ing for you. And that was enough red flag for the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go to keep an eye on the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al or the oc­cu­pant of that of­fice.”

The Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip re­called that for­mer House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George rep­ri­mand­ed Stu­art Young for com­ments hurled at then Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, which were deemed of­fen­sive in na­ture.

An­nisette-George de­scribed the com­ments as “un­par­lia­men­tary” and “rep­re­hen­si­ble” and ruled that Young re­tract his words and apol­o­gise to the House.

Fol­low­ing this rul­ing, Stu­art Young stood up, with­drew his words, and apol­o­gised. The Deputy Speak­er then ruled that the apol­o­gy was ac­cept­ed, and Young would not be re­ferred to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges.

Gon­za­les said now that the UNC is in con­trol of the House, the cul­ture has changed.

“To­day, the Prime Min­is­ter is threat­en­ing mem­bers of the op­po­si­tion, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al mak­ing deroga­to­ry state­ments in the Par­lia­ment, and I want to draw the cit­i­zens' at­ten­tion to ob­serve how their con­duct is be­ing man­aged.”

He added, “Look at the dif­fer­ences. Look at the pos­ture, and look at the dou­bling down by mem­bers of the gov­ern­ment. And I want to tell you to­day that as Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip in this Par­lia­ment, I think, as every oth­er mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, it is our du­ty and our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pre­serve the dig­ni­ty of the House so that we can earn the re­spect as lead­ers of this coun­try.”

Mean­while, Diego Mar­tin North/East MP Colm Im­bert said he will al­so con­sid­er re­fer­ring Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee. He said he will make his de­ci­sion by to­mor­row.

This, af­ter he was told by the PM that she would “cuff him down” for point­ing at her dur­ing the de­bate last Fri­day.

How­ev­er, Im­bert said to­day that he was mere­ly ges­tur­ing in her di­rec­tion be­cause he un­der­stood she had called for a di­vi­sion dur­ing the vote on the Vir­tu­al As­sets Bill. Hav­ing made a sim­i­lar re­quest him­self, he want­ed House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh to ac­knowl­edge it.

Im­bert wants an apol­o­gy from the Prime Min­is­ter.

Leader of the House Bar­ry Padarath has al­ready said no apol­o­gy will come be­cause he claimed MP Im­bert had been ha­rass­ing the PM up to that point.

Im­bert, how­ev­er, con­tend­ed that it was not pos­si­ble, as he said the PM came to the House late in the pro­ceed­ings and there­fore he would not have had a chance to in­ter­act fre­quent­ly with her.

Im­bert said at the time he did call on the House Speak­er for his pro­tec­tion, but said it ap­peared that Singh did not hear him.