Speaker blocks move to refer PM, Padarath to Privileges Committee

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh yes­ter­day ruled that at­tempts by the Op­po­si­tion to re­fer Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges do not meet the re­quired thresh­old, ef­fec­tive­ly block­ing the move a sec­ond time.

The rul­ing fol­lows two let­ters sub­mit­ted last week by Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les. One let­ter chal­lenged state­ments made by the Prime Min­is­ter al­leg­ing 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 sec­ond let­ter ad­dressed com­ments by Padarath, ac­cus­ing in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors of sid­ing with crim­i­nals over cit­i­zens by fail­ing to sup­port the bill.

In the let­ter con­cern­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­marks, Gon­za­les de­scribed the al­le­ga­tions as “se­ri­ous, reck­less and un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed.” He ar­gued that the state­ments amount­ed to grave ac­cu­sa­tions of cor­rup­tion and mis­con­duct against mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, in­clud­ing In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, with­out 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.

De­liv­er­ing his rul­ing dur­ing an­nounce­ments in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Speak­er Singh said he had giv­en the mat­ters care­ful and ex­ten­sive con­sid­er­a­tion, in­clud­ing a re­view of the de­f­i­n­i­tion and scope of par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege, rel­e­vant statu­to­ry pro­vi­sions, and in­ter­na­tion­al par­lia­men­tary prac­tice.

“I have re­flect­ed deeply on what con­sti­tutes par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege, the cir­cum­stances un­der which priv­i­lege at­tach­es to a state­ment, and the thresh­old that must be met be­fore leave is grant­ed,” Singh said.

He not­ed that Stand­ing Or­der 32 pro­vides a “rolled-up, com­pen­dious con­sid­er­a­tion” of the re­quire­ments for a ques­tion of priv­i­lege.

Singh added that his de­ci­sion was con­sis­tent with a rul­ing by Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark ear­li­er this week and con­clud­ed that the com­plaints did not meet the nec­es­sary thresh­old to be re­ferred to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges.

Mean­while, speak­ing out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Padarath de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s re­fusal to name the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors ac­cused of seek­ing to trade sup­port on the ZOSO bill. He said the is­sue should be guid­ed by their con­science rather than what he de­scribed as se­lec­tive out­rage.

“I think their con­science should be their guide in de­ter­min­ing the way for­ward with re­spect to those is­sues,” Padarath said.

He ar­gued that sim­i­lar scruti­ny had not been ap­plied in pre­vi­ous in­stances where al­le­ga­tions were made in Par­lia­ment and warned against what he termed “man­u­fac­tured out­rage.”

The ZOSO bill was de­feat­ed in Par­lia­ment last month af­ter fail­ing to se­cure the re­quired sup­port, in­clud­ing votes from the in­de­pen­dent bench. Eight out of nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors vot­ed against the bill, with one ab­sten­tion.