Hinds urges PNM supporters to petition President over SO Bill

sto­ries by Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds is call­ing on the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) to mo­bilise thou­sands of sup­port­ers and pe­ti­tion Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo not to as­sent to the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, ar­gu­ing the man­ner in which it was passed in the Sen­ate war­rants her in­ter­ven­tion.

Hinds made the call on Sun­day while ad­dress­ing a con­stituen­cy con­fer­ence host­ed by Arou­ca/Lopinot MP and PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les. He not­ed that the leg­is­la­tion failed to se­cure the sup­port of any sen­a­tor out­side the Gov­ern­ment bench.

The bill was sup­port­ed by all 15 Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors, while six Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors and nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors vot­ed against it. The 15-15 dead­lock was bro­ken by Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark, who used his cast­ing vote to ap­prove the leg­is­la­tion 16-15.

Hinds said the PNM should now launch a pub­lic cam­paign sim­i­lar to the mo­bil­i­sa­tion mount­ed dur­ing the 2012 Sec­tion 34 con­tro­ver­sy.

“I think that the PNM needs to mo­bilise 10,000 or 15,000 peo­ple like we did for Clause 34,” Hinds said.

He sug­gest­ed the par­ty pre­pare a pe­ti­tion and lead sup­port­ers to Pres­i­dent’s House to ask Kan­ga­loo to with­hold as­sent from the leg­is­la­tion.

“As far as I am con­cerned, with­out the sup­port of one in­de­pen­dent, the Gov­ern­ment lost the vote in the Sen­ate,” Hinds said.

“That’s my view. And the Pres­i­dent needs to be told so and asked to con­sid­er not as­sent­ing to that bill in the pub­lic in­ter­est.”

Hinds was re­fer­ring to the 2012 Sec­tion 34 con­tro­ver­sy, when the then Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion faced wide­spread crit­i­cism over the ear­ly procla­ma­tion of a pro­vi­sion of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings) Act.

The pro­vi­sion al­lowed peo­ple ac­cused of cer­tain of­fences com­mit­ted more than ten years ear­li­er to ap­ply to have their cas­es dis­missed if their tri­als had not be­gun. It was lat­er re­pealed dur­ing an emer­gency sit­ting of Par­lia­ment, but the is­sue sparked na­tion­wide protests and de­mands for ac­count­abil­i­ty.

On Sep­tem­ber 18, 2012, then op­po­si­tion leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley led a PNM-backed march to Pres­i­dent’s House, where a pe­ti­tion bear­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 25,000 sig­na­tures was pre­sent­ed to then act­ing pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith. Hinds was among the par­ty of­fi­cials who ac­com­pa­nied Row­ley.

Hinds al­so urged par­ty mem­bers not to be­come dis­tract­ed by in­ter­nal dis­putes.

His com­ments come amid a pub­lic dis­agree­ment in­volv­ing San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning and mem­bers of his con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive. Both Man­ning and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pene­lope Beck­les have dis­missed sug­ges­tions that the is­sue re­flects di­vi­sions with­in the par­ty.

Hinds nev­er­the­less called on mem­bers to fo­cus on the larg­er po­lit­i­cal chal­lenge fac­ing the PNM.

“When we serve in the PNM, we serve in good­ness and in truth,” he said.

“And there­fore, we are called up­on to set aside mat­ters per­tain­ing to us and all of the oth­er tri­fling is­sues that are caus­ing peo­ple to say we are not at our best.”

He said the par­ty need­ed to work col­lec­tive­ly.

“We have a bat­tle ahead of us, and the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go are at risk,” Hinds said.

He al­so ac­cused the Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion of pur­su­ing poli­cies that were di­vid­ing the coun­try.

“The Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Gov­ern­ment is a dan­ger to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

“They are di­vid­ing the peo­ple. She is threat­en­ing the sta­bil­i­ty of this coun­try by her poli­cies, by her con­duct, by her be­hav­iour.”

The Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill es­tab­lish­es a frame­work for spe­cial po­lice op­er­a­tions across sev­en polic­ing dis­tricts and al­lows for the de­c­la­ra­tion of “closed ar­eas” where ad­di­tion­al polic­ing pow­ers and re­stric­tions may be im­posed.

PNM chair­man Gon­za­les has en­dorsed Hinds’ pro­pos­al, de­scrib­ing it as time­ly.

“His call is time­ly and I sup­port it,” Gon­za­les told Guardian Me­dia.

He said the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal cli­mate re­quired an ex­tra­or­di­nary re­sponse and ar­gued that con­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guards should be ful­ly utilised.

“We are liv­ing in ex­tra­or­di­nary times that call for ex­tra­or­di­nary re­spons­es to push back against an un­hinged and dan­ger­ous Gov­ern­ment that is bent on un­der­min­ing the true char­ac­ter­is­tics of our twin-is­land, mul­ti-eth­nic and mul­ti­cul­tur­al so­ci­ety,” Gon­za­les said.

“All our con­sti­tu­tion­al guardrails must be ur­gent­ly mo­bilised to pro­tect our Re­pub­lic, and every cit­i­zen who loves this coun­try must be spurred in­to ac­tion to de­fend this land against all en­e­mies, whether elect­ed or un­elect­ed, in­ter­nal or ex­ter­nal.”

Gon­za­les al­so re­ject­ed the no­tion that pres­i­den­tial as­sent is mere­ly pro­ce­dur­al.

“The pres­i­dent is part of our par­lia­men­tary sys­tem and plays a crit­i­cal role in the law-mak­ing process by as­sent­ing to bills passed by Par­lia­ment,” he said.

“This is not a rub­ber-stamp­ing ex­er­cise. It is a se­ri­ous con­sti­tu­tion­al func­tion and it must be ex­er­cised with pru­dence and le­gal ad­vice.”

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath has re­ject­ed Hinds’ pro­pos­al, ar­gu­ing that Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo has no dis­cre­tion to with­hold as­sent from a bill du­ly passed by Par­lia­ment.

Padarath said the pres­i­dent acts with­in con­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ments un­der which she re­ceives ad­vice from Cab­i­net.

He al­so crit­i­cised Hinds per­son­al­ly, ques­tion­ing his un­der­stand­ing of the pres­i­dent’s con­sti­tu­tion­al role.

“Based on his com­ments, it is un­der­stand­able why he was a fail­ure as both a min­is­ter and a leg­is­la­tor,” Padarath told Guardian Me­dia.

“The Pres­i­dent does not have a dis­cre­tion in as­sent­ing to leg­is­la­tion. This is de­ter­mined by the Cab­i­net, which ad­vis­es the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent.”

Padarath went fur­ther, de­scrib­ing Hinds as a “dunce” through­out his “failed po­lit­i­cal ca­reer.”