Privileges matters in the air above Senate, House sittings today

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The First Ses­sion of Par­lia­ment is end­ing "big" to­day.

The Sen­ate and the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives will each have sit­tings to­day - with priv­i­leges mat­ters per­tain­ing to Par­lia­ment’s Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC) hov­er­ing in the air around both Hous­es.

This, as the First Ses­sion of the 13th Par­lia­ment's five-year term pro­rogues at mid­night tonight.

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo is­sued a procla­ma­tion to this ef­fect yes­ter­day, act­ing in ac­cor­dance with the Prime Min­is­ter's ad­vice. The ses­sion was launched May 23, 2025, fol­low­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress' gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ry.

The Pres­i­dent al­so is­sued a procla­ma­tion an­nounc­ing that the Sec­ond Ses­sion of Par­lia­ment will be­gin on June 5 at 1.30 pm. Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials said this is un­like­ly to be a cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing.

To­day, the Sen­ate meets at 1.30 pm to de­bate The Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (De­oxyri­bonu­cle­ic Acid) (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026.

Word is al­so await­ed on the Sen­ate's Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee's ex­am­i­na­tion of Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­a­tors Janelle John-Bates and Faris Al-Rawi's al­leged breach of par­lia­men­tary du­ty.

Par­lia­ment's web­site stat­ed that the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee held its third and fourth (pri­vate) meet­ings last Sat­ur­day and on Wednes­day. No fur­ther meet­ings were list­ed.

John-Bates and Al-Rawi were re­ferred to the com­mit­tee con­cern­ing their al­leged as­sis­tance to for­mer PNM health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh in prepar­ing his state­ment for the PAAC’s in­quiry in­to state ac­qui­si­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals. John-Bates was a PAAC mem­ber at the time of as­sist­ing Deyals­ingh.

The PAAC did a spe­cial re­port on the is­sue, cit­ing egre­gious con­duct by John-Bates.

PAAC mem­ber, Op­po­si­tion MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, did a mi­nor­i­ty re­port dis­put­ing points and rais­ing the leak of pri­vate PAAC pro­ceed­ings and an “ero­sion of par­lia­men­tary stan­dards" with­in the com­mit­tee, un­der its chair­man - House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh.

The PAAC's spe­cial re­port was ap­proved. John-Bates was re­placed on the PAAC by PNM Sen­a­tor Vish­nu Dhan­paul.

A Gov­ern­ment mo­tion to re­fer John-Bates and Al-Rawi to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee was sub­se­quent­ly passed with Gov­ern­ment votes and that of In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Court­ney Mc­Nish.

Par­lia­ment's Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty - where John-Bates was al­so a mem­ber - did a re­port seek­ing to re­move her from that com­mit­tee as well. It was passed in the Sen­ate and laid in the House.

John-Bates of­fered her res­ig­na­tion to Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ny Beck­les, who has said that the mat­ter is un­der ac­tive con­sid­er­a­tion, stress­ing she’d act in her own time.

The House al­so meets at 1.30 pm on Pri­vate Mem­bers’ (Op­po­si­tion) Busi­ness, where de­bate con­tin­ues on Op­po­si­tion whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les's mo­tion call­ing on Gov­ern­ment to ur­gent­ly es­tab­lish and im­ple­ment an ad­e­quate, ev­i­dence-based na­tion­al road safe­ty sys­tem to sup­press the in­crease in road traf­fic fa­tal­i­ties.

Al­so ex­pect­ed to be dealt with is Gon­za­les's let­ter call­ing for PAAC chair­man, House Speak­er Singh, to be sent be­fore Par­lia­ment's Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee for al­leged breach of priv­i­lege and con­tempt by con­duct. This in­cludes al­leged­ly fail­ing to de­clare in­ter­est and re­cuse him­self from sit­ting as PAAC chair­man dur­ing the PAAC's phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals probe.

The let­ter was sent to Deputy Speak­er Aiy­na Ali on May 8. It hasn't yet been dealt with.

Gon­za­les’ 16-point let­ter cites al­leged ac­tions and omis­sions by Singh. It fo­cus­es on Singh’s com­ments in a De­cem­ber 2024 news­pa­per ar­ti­cle, where Singh al­leged­ly stat­ed that as a lawyer, he'd “re­ceived nu­mer­ous com­plaints from clients who all said they'd tried to im­port phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals but when they ap­ply for per­mits, the process was stuck in the Food and Drugs chem­istry di­vi­sion.”

Gon­za­les not­ed two oth­er pub­li­ca­tions rel­a­tive to cov­er­age of state­ments by Singh. He con­tend­ed that Singh, as PAAC chair­man, was ob­lig­at­ed to have dis­closed his rep­re­sen­ta­tion of clients with in­ter­ests in the PAAC en­quiry's sub­ject mat­ter of pur­chase/ap­provals of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals; Singh should have re­cused him­self as chair­man at the start of the en­quiry and stepped down from PAAC's en­quiry.

Al­leg­ing bias was demon­strat­ed, Gon­za­les said Singh knew or ought to have known he was re­quired to dis­close his pre­vi­ous and/or con­tin­u­ing in­ter­est in the PAAC en­quiry's sub­ject mat­ter. Gon­za­les fur­ther cit­ed con­cerns about Singh in the PAAC Mi­nor­i­ty Re­port on John-Bates.

Gov­ern­ment will re­ply to Gon­za­les' mo­tion on the ad­journ­ment on the need for a "co­her­ent, work­able" na­tion­al an­ti-crime strat­e­gy, fol­low­ing con­tin­ued vi­o­lent crimes dur­ing the State of Emer­gency. At least one Gov­ern­ment state­ment is al­so ex­pect­ed.