Analysts agree with Govt concerns over Independent Senators

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

Two po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts are back­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s con­cerns about the so-called in­de­pen­dence of sen­a­tors ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent. But a for­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor who faced the re­buke of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer, Dr Kirk Meighoo, is dis­miss­ing his crit­i­cism as base­less.

Cit­ing a re­cent rul­ing by Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Prof Hamid Ghany not­ed that while pub­lic com­men­tary on past votes is fair, spec­u­lat­ing on fu­ture votes is in­ap­pro­pri­ate.

He was re­spond­ing to Meighoo’s com­ments at the UNC’s head­quar­ters on Sun­day that if at least four In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors do not sup­port the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025 “they will ac­tu­al­ly al­low the PNM to con­tin­ue to rape the Trea­sury, even in Op­po­si­tion.”

“To sug­gest that you could try to in­tim­i­date them on votes that they are go­ing to take in the fu­ture, I agree with the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate that you re­al­ly shouldn’t,” the po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist said.

How­ev­er, Ghany re­mains dis­turbed by the ap­par­ent flip-flop­ping by In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors which he said chal­lenges their cred­i­bil­i­ty and po­ten­tial­ly un­der­mines pub­lic per­cep­tion of neu­tral­i­ty. Last Fri­day, the Up­per House vot­ed on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (Re­peal) Bill in the com­mit­tee stage where six in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors ab­stained in­clud­ing Se­nior Coun­sel An­tho­ny Vieira, De­oroop Teemal, Michael Si­mon Vic­tor de la Bastide, Can­dice Jones-Sim­mons, Fran­cis Lewis and Ali­cia Pauline Lalite-Et­ti­enne.

Dr De­sirée Mur­ray, Court­ney Mc Nish and tem­po­rary in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor Zo­la Phillips vot­ed yes. Rough­ly sev­en min­utes lat­er, by the end of the Com­mit­tee Stage, eight In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors had changed their po­si­tions.

Ghany de­clined to spec­u­late on the sen­a­tors’ mo­tives but he em­pha­sised that their votes car­ry weight and their be­hav­iour war­rants scruti­ny.

“I’m very trou­bled about these ‘pres­i­den­tial sen­a­tors’ mak­ing one de­ci­sion in Com­mit­tee Stage and sev­en or eight min­utes lat­er chang­ing it from yes to no, or from ab­stain to no.

“I have nev­er seen sen­a­tors change their vote from com­mit­tee stage to the fi­nal vote in such a short space of time.”

Weigh­ing in on the in­de­pen­dence of sen­a­tors ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Win­ford James re­it­er­at­ed pre­vi­ous calls for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, ad­vo­cat­ing for a shift to a di­rect­ly elect­ed ex­ec­u­tive pres­i­den­cy to en­sure re­al in­de­pen­dence in crit­i­cal ap­point­ments.

He re­called that for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning had pro­posed sim­i­lar re­forms, which were echoed in the find­ings of a Na­tion­al Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form es­tab­lished un­der the Dr Kei­th Row­ley-led ad­min­is­tra­tion.

James said the ac­tions of the in­de­pen­dent bench have raised valid ques­tions about ob­jec­tiv­i­ty.

“We need to elim­i­nate the sus­pi­cion that peo­ple ap­point­ed to the Pres­i­den­tial of­fice, peo­ple ap­point­ed as in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, are act­ing as true in­de­pen­dents. Not that you want to wipe out all of the sus­pi­cions that we have here, but at least you’re go­ing to get greater fair­ness, greater ob­jec­tiv­i­ty, than what the cur­rent ap­point­ment process gen­er­ates. What it gen­er­ates is a kind of con­fu­sion.”

For­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor and at­tor­ney Hazel Thomp­son-Ahye yes­ter­day pushed back against crit­i­cism from the UNC’s PRO, call­ing it “non­sen­si­cal” to judge a sen­a­tor’s in­de­pen­dence based sole­ly on how of­ten they vote with the Gov­ern­ment.

“It is non­sen­si­cal to judge the in­de­pen­dence of a sen­a­tor by the num­ber of times he/ she has vot­ed with the Gov­ern­ment. That vote, many times, would have come af­ter care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion by the Sen­a­tor of the word­ing of the leg­is­la­tion and by use­ful sug­ges­tions made to im­prove the leg­is­la­tion to ac­cord with le­gal prin­ci­ples.”

The at­tor­ney was re­spond­ing to the UNC PRO, who high­light­ed that dur­ing her tenure from 2018 to 2025, she vot­ed 14 out of 16 times in favour of the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Thomp­son-Ahye in­sist­ed her record in Par­lia­ment demon­strates her in­de­pen­dence, point­ing to nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions where she open­ly crit­i­cised the gov­ern­ment.

“I have come to Par­lia­ment and chas­tised the gov­ern­ment for the low age of crim­i­nal re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, for not hav­ing laws on sex­u­al ha­rass­ment, for fail­ure to ad­here to the Con­ven­tion on the rights of the child with re­gard to its treat­ment of mi­grant chil­dren which amount­ed to dis­crim­i­na­tion. I have called out the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty on fail­ure to up­hold the law re­gard­ing in­de­cen­cy of wear and be­hav­iour at Car­ni­val time. I have called out the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion for as­sum­ing ju­ris­dic­tion over girls over age 16 to send them to MI­LAT. I was re­port­ed in the press as the sen­a­tor who told the min­is­ter of fi­nance he should apol­o­gise to the au­di­tor gen­er­al. I could go on and on,” she said.

“My back is broad, so I can take the neg­a­tive com­ments. But I must won­der where is the re­al ev­i­dence of lack of in­de­pen­dence? I have giv­en pre­sen­ta­tions and work­shops in 33 coun­tries of the world and be­long to 3 in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions and my re­spect is well in­tact. Who knows Mr Meighoo,” she quipped.

Ef­forts to con­tact oth­er In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors named by Meighoo, in­clud­ing Am­ri­ta De­onar­ine, Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh, Charisse Seep­er­sad, and Paul Richards were un­suc­cess­ful.

PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary and Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Fos­ter Cum­mings has con­demned both Meighoo and Gov­ern­ment for what he de­scribed as “at­tacks” on In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors who crit­i­cised gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy in the Sen­ate.