Attorney Margaret Rose replaces John-Bates in Senate

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

At­tor­ney and pro­cure­ment ex­pert Dr Mar­garet Satya Rose has re­placed Janelle John-Bates on the Op­po­si­tion bench, but Faris Al-Rawi has sur­vived Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les’ “ro­ta­tion.”

Af­ter a month of un­cer­tain­ty, Beck­les yes­ter­day re­moved John-Bates.

Rose took the oath of of­fice at the start of yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate sit­ting, as the Op­po­si­tion moved to fill the va­can­cy cre­at­ed by John-Bates, who of­fered to step down on May 1 amid in­tense back­lash, af­ter it was re­vealed she had edit­ed a par­lia­men­tary wit­ness state­ment for for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh through vis­i­ble “track changes,” while serv­ing on the com­mit­tee re­view­ing the mat­ter.

Wel­com­ing the new sen­a­tor, Beck­les praised 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.

Beck­les 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,” she said.

Rose al­so served as le­gal coun­sel for for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who of­fered con­grat­u­la­tions.

“She will bring a strong com­pe­tent voice to im­por­tant na­tion­al is­sues,” Row­ley told Guardian Me­dia af­ter hear­ing of the move.

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

Speak­ing at an Op­po­si­tion news con­fer­ence at the Red House yes­ter­day, Beck­les de­scribed John-Bates’ re­moval as part of her “ro­ta­tion of sen­a­tors.”

De­fend­ing her move to re­move John-Bates, Beck­les said, “I took in­to con­sid­er­a­tion a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of things. I be­lieve that is in the best in­ter­est of the op­po­si­tion at this time. Sen­a­tor Bates is a young sen­a­tor, some­one who came and would have learned a lot based on the ex­pe­ri­ence that tran­spired.

“I have now ap­point­ed Sen­a­tor Dr Mar­garet Rose. As the leader of the Op­po­si­tion, I have to de­ter­mine what are the skill sets I feel is best when ap­point­ing sen­a­tors. The sit­u­a­tion as it re­lates to Sen­a­tor Bates, Sen­a­tor Bates sat on the PAAC com­mit­tee, and there­fore, we know what tran­spired.”

How­ev­er, when it was not­ed that Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi’s name al­so ap­peared along­side that of John-Bates on the wit­ness state­ment sub­mit­ted by Deyals­ingh, and Al-Rawi and John-Bates were re­ferred to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee over his al­leged in­volve­ment in the mat­ter, be­fore it lapsed at the end of the First Ses­sion of Par­lia­ment, Beck­les said there was a stark dif­fer­ence in cir­cum­stances.

“The point is that Sen­a­tor Bates sat on the com­mit­tee. Sen­a­tor Al-Rawi was not on the com­mit­tee. And as the leader of the Op­po­si­tion, I will be do­ing my ro­ta­tions from time to time. And I took my time in mak­ing a de­ci­sion, be­cause some peo­ple felt it took too long. The im­por­tant thing for me is to en­sure that the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee sat, and that I had the ben­e­fit of all the ev­i­dence be­fore I made my de­ci­sion.”

Asked if this was a warn­ing to sen­a­tors that no­body is safe from re­moval, Beck­les said, “No­body has any guar­an­tee of be­ing ap­point­ed for five years.”

John Bates: Res­ig­na­tion not ad­mis­sion of wrong­do­ing

Mean­while, John-Bates says her de­ci­sion to re­sign from the Sen­ate should not be in­ter­pret­ed as an ad­mis­sion of wrong­do­ing in the PAAC state­ment con­tro­ver­sy that ul­ti­mate­ly led to her de­par­ture.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, John-Bates said, “Ac­cord­ing­ly, I took the de­ci­sion to step aside from the of­fice of Sen­a­tor.”

How­ev­er, she main­tained that the move “should not be in­ter­pret­ed as an ad­mis­sion that I sought to in­ter­fere with any wit­ness, ob­struct any in­quiry, or de­ceive Par­lia­ment.”

In­stead, she said her res­ig­na­tion re­flect­ed “re­spect for the of­fice, for the in­sti­tu­tion of Par­lia­ment, and for the need to al­low the work of the Op­po­si­tion to pro­ceed with­out dis­trac­tion.”

John-Bates thanked Beck­les for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve and said she re­mained “will­ing to serve the peo­ple of this coun­try in what­ev­er ca­pac­i­ty I may be called up­on to do so.”

PNM prais­es Dr Rose's ex­ten­sive le­gal ex­pe­ri­ence

In a state­ment, the 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 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.

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

Rose has rep­re­sent­ed for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in sev­er­al high-pro­file le­gal mat­ters, in­clud­ing pro­ceed­ings be­fore the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil, where she was part of the team that suc­cess­ful­ly ar­gued his ap­peal in a long-run­ning To­ba­go land dis­pute. She al­so pre­vi­ous­ly served as Row­ley’s le­gal coun­sel dur­ing the UDe­COTT Com­mis­sion of En­quiry and in mat­ters in­volv­ing the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion.