Annisette-George rejects comparison with Mark casting vote

Akash Sama­roo

For­mer House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George has re­ject­ed at­tempts to use her cast­ing votes in Par­lia­ment in 2017 as prece­dent for Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark’s de­cid­ing vote on the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, ar­gu­ing that none of her votes de­ter­mined the fate of sub­stan­tive leg­is­la­tion.

In a de­tailed re­sponse to the con­tro­ver­sy, An­nisette-George said there was a “crit­i­cal dis­tinc­tion” be­tween the cir­cum­stances in which she ex­er­cised cast­ing votes as Speak­er and Mark’s de­ci­sion last Thurs­day to break a 15-15 Sen­ate tie and se­cure pas­sage of the con­tentious Bill.

“What a STRETCH to state that the prece­dent for the breach of the Deni­son Prin­ci­ple by the Sen­ate Pres­i­dent on the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill was set in 2017 by the then Speak­er of the House!!!!” An­nisette-George wrote in her re­sponse dat­ed Sep­tem­ber 28.

Her com­ments di­rect­ly chal­lenge con­sti­tu­tion­al af­fairs ex­pert Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany, who ar­gued that An­nisette-George’s use of cast­ing votes in 2017 had ef­fec­tive­ly dis­placed the British par­lia­men­tary con­ven­tion gov­ern­ing how a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer should break a tie. Ghany con­tend­ed that there has been no set­tled lo­cal prac­tice since then and that Mark was en­ti­tled to cast his vote as he did.

The dis­pute cen­tres on the Deni­son Prin­ci­ple, a par­lia­men­tary con­ven­tion which An­nisette-George said re­quires a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer, when break­ing a tie, to pre­serve the sta­tus quo and avoid us­ing the cast­ing vote to de­ter­mine a sub­stan­tive mat­ter where mem­bers can be giv­en an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­cide it.

She ex­plained that the prin­ci­ple does not sim­ply re­quire a pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer to vote “no” or against the Gov­ern­ment.

In­stead, she said, a cast­ing vote can be used in favour of fur­ther dis­cus­sion, while a fi­nal vote should pre­serve ex­ist­ing law or the ex­ist­ing po­si­tion un­less a ma­jor­i­ty of mem­bers votes to change it.

An­nisette-George ex­am­ined four cast­ing votes she ex­er­cised in 2017, in­clud­ing dur­ing pro­ceed­ings in­volv­ing the In­dictable Of­fences (Pre-Tri­al Pro­ce­dure) Bill, the Bail (Ac­cess to Bail) (Amend­ment) Bill and the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure (Plea Dis­cus­sion and Plea Agree­ment) Bill.

She said those votes ei­ther al­lowed de­bate or con­sid­er­a­tion to con­tin­ue or dealt with the tim­ing and con­tin­u­a­tion of par­lia­men­tary pro­ceed­ings.

In one in­stance on March 15, 2017, when there was a 16-16 tie on whether de­bate on the In­dictable Of­fences Bill should be ad­journed, An­nisette-George said she ex­press­ly vot­ed in favour of the sta­tus quo.

In Sep­tem­ber that year, she al­so broke 17-17 ties dur­ing con­sid­er­a­tion of Sen­ate amend­ments and on the ad­journ­ment of the House.

But An­nisette-George main­tained those votes did not en­act leg­is­la­tion or fi­nal­ly de­ter­mine the sub­stan­tive mat­ters be­fore MPs.

“In none of the four in­stances cit­ed by the Pro­fes­sor was the cast­ing vote a de­ter­min­ing or fi­nal vote on the sub­stan­tive is­sue be­fore the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives,” she said. What a stretch-The cast­ing Vote

She said the votes in­stead al­lowed fur­ther dis­cus­sion or de­lib­er­a­tion, or dealt with the con­tin­u­a­tion and tim­ing of pro­ceed­ings.

“The four 2017 cast­ing votes were not used to de­ter­mine sub­stan­tive leg­isla­tive change; that is the crit­i­cal dis­tinc­tion which the Pro­fes­sor’s analy­sis over­looks,” she ar­gued. What a stretch-The cast­ing Vote

That dis­tinc­tion has be­come cen­tral to the de­bate over Mark’s ac­tion be­cause his cast­ing vote came on the third read­ing of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill.

All 15 Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors sup­port­ed the leg­is­la­tion, while the six Op­po­si­tion and nine In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors vot­ed against it. With the Sen­ate dead­locked 15-15, Mark ex­er­cised his cast­ing vote in favour, re­sult­ing in the Bill be­ing passed 16-15.

The con­tro­ver­sy has prompt­ed com­pet­ing in­ter­pre­ta­tions of par­lia­men­tary con­ven­tion. For­mer Speak­er Nizam Mo­hammed has sim­i­lar­ly ar­gued that An­nisette-George’s pre­vi­ous votes were ma­te­ri­al­ly dif­fer­ent be­cause they did not fi­nal­ly de­ter­mine gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tion, while Ghany main­tains her ac­tions changed the lo­cal prac­tice sur­round­ing cast­ing votes.

An­nisette-George ac­knowl­edged that there has been a turn­ing point in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ob­ser­vance of the British par­lia­men­tary con­ven­tion.

How­ev­er, she firm­ly re­ject­ed Ghany’s con­tention that it oc­curred un­der her Speak­er­ship.

“The Pro­fes­sor is cor­rect that there has oc­curred a turn­ing point in the set­tled prac­tice in the ob­ser­vance of the British Par­lia­men­tary Con­ven­tion for Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cers of the Deni­son Prin­ci­ple,” she con­clud­ed, “but he is ALL WRONG in iden­ti­fy­ing 2017 as the date.”