No decision yet from Beckles on John-Bates’ fate

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor–Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is yet to de­cide on whether she will ac­cept Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates’ res­ig­na­tion.

Beck­les said last Fri­day that the mat­ter re­mained un­der “ac­tive con­sid­er­a­tion,” but stayed tight-lipped yes­ter­day de­spite at­tempts by Guardian Me­dia to de­ter­mine whether the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader had made a fi­nal de­ci­sion.

Mean­while, when asked for an up­date, John-Bates de­clined to com­ment.

Guardian Me­dia al­so spoke with se­nior par­ty in­sid­ers who said they are not sure when a de­ci­sion will be made.

Beck­les made it clear last Fri­day that she would not be rushed and re­fused to give a time frame for her de­ci­sion.

There is no sit­ting in the Sen­ate to­day.

But while there is still un­cer­tain­ty on if John-Bates will be dis­missed from the Up­per House by Beck­les, what is cer­tain is that both John-Bates and Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi have been re­ferred to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee.

Con­fir­ma­tion came last Fri­day from Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark, who told the Up­per House he was “sat­is­fied that a pri­ma fa­cie case has been made” to re­fer both PNM sen­a­tors to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee.

The sen­a­tors were re­ferred to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee fol­low­ing a “track changes” scan­dal where meta­da­ta re­vealed they had edit­ed a wit­ness state­ment for for­mer Health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh be­fore he ap­peared be­fore a Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC) look­ing in­to the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try.

This sparked a ma­jor con­tro­ver­sy be­cause John-Bates was a mem­ber of the com­mit­tee, while Faris Al-Rawi al­leged­ly made ex­ten­sive ed­its to the same doc­u­ment, lead­ing to ac­cu­sa­tions of “coach­ing” a wit­ness and un­der­min­ing the in­tegri­ty of par­lia­men­tary pro­ceed­ings.

Both sen­a­tors have not ad­mit­ted any wrong­do­ing.

Un­der the Sen­ate Stand­ing Or­ders, specif­i­cal­ly Or­der 82, the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges is a five-mem­ber body chaired by the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate. The re­main­ing four mem­bers are ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent at the start of each par­lia­men­tary ses­sion, typ­i­cal­ly en­sur­ing a bal­ance be­tween Gov­ern­ment, Op­po­si­tion and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors.

Once a mat­ter is re­ferred, the com­mit­tee op­er­ates like a se­mi-for­mal tri­bunal, con­duct­ing its de­lib­er­a­tions in pri­vate rather than in open de­bate. It is em­pow­ered to gath­er ev­i­dence, in­clud­ing sum­mon­ing wit­ness­es and re­quest­ing doc­u­ments, pa­pers and of­fi­cial records. Af­ter com­plet­ing its in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the com­mit­tee pre­pares a re­port out­lin­ing whether a breach oc­curred and rec­om­mend­ing any ac­tion, which is then laid in the Sen­ate for de­bate and a fi­nal de­ci­sion.

The com­mit­tee it­self does not im­pose penal­ties but in­stead makes rec­om­men­da­tions to the full Sen­ate. Based on those find­ings, the Sen­ate can take a range of ac­tions un­der its rules and es­tab­lished prac­tice, in­clud­ing is­su­ing a for­mal rep­ri­mand record­ed in the Hansard, sus­pend­ing a sen­a­tor for a spec­i­fied pe­ri­od with loss of pay and ac­cess to the cham­ber, or re­quir­ing a for­mal apol­o­gy to the House. In more ex­treme and rare cas­es, the Sen­ate may al­so move to va­cate a sen­a­tor’s seat.