John accuses LATT of trying to silence PM

Deputy UNC po­lit­i­cal leader and Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John has ac­cused the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) of at­tempt­ing to cur­tail Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s free­dom of ex­pres­sion.

John made the ac­cu­sa­tion as she strong­ly de­fend­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s crit­i­cism of In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors fol­low­ing their re­fusal to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment’s Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill.

“I stand firm­ly in sup­port of the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment re­gard­ing ‘In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors’ and I al­so con­demn the Law As­so­ci­a­tion’s fee­ble at­tempt to cur­tail the Prime Min­is­ter’s right to free speech,” John said.

LATT, in a state­ment on Mon­day, ex­pressed con­cern over Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s crit­i­cism of the In­de­pen­dent Bench and her de­c­la­ra­tion that the Gov­ern­ment would no longer ac­cept amend­ments pro­posed by In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors.

The as­so­ci­a­tion de­fend­ed the con­sti­tu­tion­al role of the nine In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors and ar­gued that democ­ra­cy de­pend­ed on gov­ern­ments hear­ing and con­sid­er­ing views from out­side the Gov­ern­ment bench.

John, how­ev­er, ac­cused the as­so­ci­a­tion of se­lec­tive­ly re­ly­ing on the Con­sti­tu­tion while over­look­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s right to crit­i­cise pub­lic of­fi­cials.

“At its core, the Con­sti­tu­tion is meant to nur­ture democ­ra­cy and pro­tect fun­da­men­tal rights. In case the Law As­so­ci­a­tion needs a re­minder, free speech is the lifeblood of democ­ra­cy,” she said.

John ar­gued that sen­a­tors were not im­mune from pub­lic crit­i­cism and said strong po­lit­i­cal lan­guage was part of ro­bust de­mo­c­ra­t­ic de­bate.

“Pol­i­tics and po­lit­i­cal per­sua­sion is not a tea par­ty that the au­thors of that LATT state­ment seem to be more fa­mil­iar with. It is a cru­cible. It is a bat­tle­field of ideas and com­men­tary,” she said.

“Strong lan­guage en­gen­ders strong de­bate and the UNC will nev­er re­treat from a fight on be­half of in­no­cent lives, weep­ing moth­ers and vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies ter­rorised by the crim­i­nals which the PNM failed to pro­tect.”

John al­so ques­tioned the po­si­tion of In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, ar­gu­ing that un­like elect­ed politi­cians, they do not face vot­ers at the polls.

“These pres­i­den­tial­ly ap­point­ed sen­a­tors pound­ed no pave­ment, shook no hands and faced no pub­lic scruti­ny, to en­joy the perks of sen­a­tor­ship. The least they can do is en­dure some cri­tique of an ob­vi­ous­ly evil de­ci­sion to not sup­port the UNC’s war on crime and crim­i­nals,” she said.

How­ev­er, LATT not­ed in its state­ment that no mem­ber of the Sen­ate is di­rect­ly elect­ed. Un­der the con­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ment, 16 sen­a­tors are ap­point­ed on the ad­vice of the Prime Min­is­ter, six on the ad­vice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader and nine by the Pres­i­dent in the Pres­i­dent’s dis­cre­tion from among peo­ple who have dis­tin­guished them­selves in var­i­ous fields.

John al­so ques­tioned the in­de­pen­dence of the In­de­pen­dent Bench, point­ing to Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s pre­vi­ous as­so­ci­a­tion with the PNM be­fore be­com­ing Head of State.

She ar­gued that when In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors vote in a man­ner the Gov­ern­ment con­sid­ers con­sis­tent with po­si­tions tak­en by the Op­po­si­tion, the Prime Min­is­ter and mem­bers of the pub­lic are en­ti­tled to ques­tion their de­ci­sions.

“So when the In­de­pen­dent Bench votes in a man­ner that ap­pears re­mark­ably con­sis­tent with that very gospel, is it un­rea­son­able for the pub­lic and the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter to ques­tion the in­de­pen­dence be­ing claimed?” John asked.

John al­so brand­ed LATT “elit­ist” and ac­cused the as­so­ci­a­tion of on­ly now find­ing its voice af­ter re­main­ing silent on is­sues un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion.

She end­ed her state­ment by in­vok­ing the late ca­lyp­so icon Dr Slinger Fran­cis­co, the Mighty Spar­row, and his ca­lyp­so “Good Cit­i­zen.”

Quot­ing from the song, John said: “They say you have the right to crit­i­cize but then you are vic­tim­ized,” be­fore lat­er adding, “Yet these fakes and phonies en­joy a long life of lux­u­ry while they spread cor­rup­tion through­out the coun­try.”