Dr Margaret Rose replaces John-Bates

Akash Sama­roo

At­tor­ney-at-law Dr Mar­garet Satya Rose was to­day sworn in as an Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor, re­plac­ing Janelle John-Bates on the Op­po­si­tion bench in the Sen­ate.

Dr Rose took the oath of of­fice at the start of the Sen­ate sit­ting as the Op­po­si­tion moved to fill a va­can­cy that arose af­ter John-Bates faced se­vere back­lash and re­signed fol­low­ing rev­e­la­tions that she ghost-edit­ed a par­lia­men­tary wit­ness’s state­ment us­ing vis­i­ble “track changes” while serv­ing on the com­mit­tee re­view­ing the mat­ter.

In a state­ment, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) de­scribed Dr Rose as an ac­com­plished at­tor­ney, pub­lic pol­i­cy re­searcher, ed­u­ca­tor and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly re­spect­ed spe­cial­ist in pub­lic pro­cure­ment, gov­er­nance, com­mer­cial law and an­ti-cor­rup­tion sys­tems.

The par­ty said Dr Rose brings more than 30 years of le­gal ex­pe­ri­ence and has ad­vised gov­ern­ments, pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions on pro­cure­ment gov­er­nance, reg­u­la­to­ry com­pli­ance and pub­lic sec­tor re­form.

A hold­er of a Doc­tor of Pol­i­cy Re­search and Prac­tice from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bath in the Unit­ed King­dom, Dr Rose has al­so served as coun­sel in sev­er­al high-pro­file com­mis­sions of in­quiry and court mat­ters, in­clud­ing ap­pear­ances be­fore the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil.

Wel­com­ing the new sen­a­tor, Beck­les praised Dr Rose’s pro­fes­sion­al ac­com­plish­ments and ex­pressed con­fi­dence in her abil­i­ty to strength­en the Op­po­si­tion’s per­for­mance in the Up­per House.

“Sen­a­tor Dr Rose has a rich and out­stand­ing record of pro­fes­sion­al achieve­ment, pub­lic ser­vice and aca­d­e­m­ic ex­cel­lence. Her ex­per­tise in gov­er­nance, ac­count­abil­i­ty and leg­isla­tive scruti­ny will sig­nif­i­cant­ly strength­en the Op­po­si­tion’s con­tri­bu­tion in the Sen­ate. I am con­fi­dent that she will serve the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go with dis­tinc­tion, in­tegri­ty and com­mit­ment,” Beck­les said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so thanked John-Bates for her ser­vice.

“I wish to place on record my grat­i­tude to for­mer Sen­a­tor Mrs Janelle John-Bates for her com­mit­ment and her con­tri­bu­tion as an Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor over the past year. We will all con­tin­ue to work to­geth­er to re­store good gov­er­nance to Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Beck­les said.

The PNM said it looks for­ward to Dr Rose’s con­tri­bu­tion to the par­lia­men­tary process and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.