Law Association: Name Senators or Withdraw ZOSO Vote-Trading Claim

Akash Sama­roo

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go says if the al­le­ga­tions made by the Prime Min­is­ter against In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors have sub­stance, they must be re­port­ed to the ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­i­ties for a fair in­quiry, and if not, they should be with­drawn.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued fol­low­ing the de­feat of the Law Re­form (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions) (Spe­cial Se­cu­ri­ty and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Mea­sures) Bill, 2026, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go warned that re­peat­ing un­ver­i­fied ac­cu­sa­tions “serves on­ly to un­der­mine pub­lic con­fi­dence in our Par­lia­ment.”

The As­so­ci­a­tion ex­pressed con­cern over what it de­scribed as “grave ac­cu­sa­tions” made against un­named In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, not­ing that such claims, if true, would amount to se­ri­ous mis­con­duct.

The Prime Min­is­ter claimed that two In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors ap­proached a se­nior Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor and sought to ex­change their sup­port for the ZOSO Bill for per­son­al favours. How­ev­er, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has yet to name the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors or the Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor ap­proached.

How­ev­er, the LATT cau­tioned that mak­ing al­le­ga­tions with­out pro­vid­ing suf­fi­cient de­tails to al­low for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, in­ves­ti­ga­tion, or re­sponse is dam­ag­ing to de­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance.

“The mak­ing of grave ac­cu­sa­tions against par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, ac­cu­sa­tions that, if true, would con­sti­tute se­ri­ous mis­con­duct, with­out pro­vid­ing suf­fi­cient par­tic­u­lars to per­mit iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, in­ves­ti­ga­tion, or re­sponse, is in­im­i­cal to the prop­er func­tion­ing of our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions,” the As­so­ci­a­tion said.

It added that the fail­ure to name those ac­cused un­fair­ly casts sus­pi­cion over the en­tire In­de­pen­dent bench.

“Such al­le­ga­tions place all nine In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors un­der a cloud of sus­pi­cion while af­ford­ing none the op­por­tu­ni­ty to clear their name,” the re­lease stat­ed.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion said that if there is sub­stance to the claims, the ap­pro­pri­ate course of ac­tion is clear.

“If there is sub­stance to these claims, the ap­pro­pri­ate course is to pro­vide the rel­e­vant de­tails to the prop­er au­thor­i­ties so that a fair in­quiry may be con­duct­ed,” the As­so­ci­a­tion said, adding that “the rep­e­ti­tion of un­ver­i­fi­able ac­cu­sa­tions serves on­ly to un­der­mine pub­lic con­fi­dence in our Par­lia­ment and ought to be pub­licly with­drawn.”

The LATT al­so re­mind­ed all par­ties that the pre­sump­tion of in­no­cence re­mains a cor­ner­stone of the le­gal sys­tem and warned against pub­lic con­dem­na­tion in the ab­sence of proof.

The As­so­ci­a­tion fur­ther raised con­cern about the tone of re­cent pub­lic com­men­tary di­rect­ed at con­sti­tu­tion­al of­fice­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, stress­ing that re­spect for con­sti­tu­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions is es­sen­tial to de­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance.

It al­so de­fend­ed the role of In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, not­ing that they are ap­point­ed to ex­er­cise in­de­pen­dent judg­ment and rep­re­sent di­verse in­ter­ests with­in so­ci­ety.

“At­tacks up­on In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors for vot­ing ac­cord­ing to their con­science, par­tic­u­lar­ly where they have ar­tic­u­lat­ed rea­soned ob­jec­tions and pro­posed amend­ments that were not en­ter­tained, risk chill­ing the very in­de­pen­dence that their of­fice de­mands,” the re­lease said.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion called on all par­tic­i­pants in pub­lic life to re­frain from mak­ing al­le­ga­tions that can­not be sub­stan­ti­at­ed, to al­low those ac­cused an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond, and to con­duct po­lit­i­cal de­bate with ci­vil­i­ty and re­spect for the dig­ni­ty of Par­lia­ment.