LATT defends independent senators after PM remarks

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to with­draw what it de­scribes as dis­parag­ing re­marks against In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors fol­low­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to se­cure their sup­port for pro­posed leg­is­la­tion.

In a state­ment, LATT said it was con­cerned by the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­port­ed com­ments, in­clud­ing a vow that the Gov­ern­ment would not ac­cept amend­ments pro­posed by In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors in the fu­ture.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said this was not the first oc­ca­sion on which the Prime Min­is­ter had crit­i­cised the In­de­pen­dent Bench af­ter her Gov­ern­ment failed to se­cure its sup­port for leg­is­la­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to LATT, on both oc­ca­sions the Gov­ern­ment re­fused to en­ter­tain amend­ments pro­posed by the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors which, it said, could have se­cured their sup­port.

LATT al­so raised con­cerns about re­port­ed com­ments by a Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter and Sen­a­tor that it was not the in­ten­tion of the framers of the Con­sti­tu­tion for an elect­ed gov­ern­ment to have to de­pend on the votes of mem­bers of the In­de­pen­dent Bench to pass leg­is­la­tion.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said such a re­quire­ment would not be un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic, ar­gu­ing that the Con­sti­tu­tion clear­ly es­tab­lish­es the Sen­ate as part of Par­lia­ment and pro­vides for the ap­point­ment of Sen­a­tors who are not aligned with the elect­ed Gov­ern­ment.

LATT cit­ed sec­tions 39 and 40 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which es­tab­lish Par­lia­ment as com­pris­ing the Pres­i­dent, the Sen­ate and the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

It point­ed specif­i­cal­ly to the com­po­si­tion of the 31-mem­ber Sen­ate. Six­teen Sen­a­tors are ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent on the ad­vice of the Prime Min­is­ter, six on the ad­vice of the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, while nine are ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent in his or her dis­cre­tion from among out­stand­ing per­sons from eco­nom­ic, so­cial and com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tions and oth­er ma­jor fields of en­deav­our.

LATT not­ed that no mem­ber of the Sen­ate is elect­ed through the polls, but said the con­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work clear­ly pro­vides for the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the Sen­ate in the leg­isla­tive process.

The as­so­ci­a­tion said the sys­tem had been in place since In­de­pen­dence and was the con­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ment un­der which every elect­ed gov­ern­ment had been re­quired to op­er­ate.

LATT is now call­ing on the Prime Min­is­ter to with­draw her re­marks against In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors.

Pend­ing such ac­tion, the as­so­ci­a­tion has al­so called on the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate to take the nec­es­sary steps to en­sure that the rep­u­ta­tion of the Sen­ate is pre­served.

LATT said democ­ra­cy de­pend­ed on the Gov­ern­ment hear­ing and con­sid­er­ing the views of those who do not sit at the Gov­ern­ment ta­ble, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the In­de­pen­dent Bench.