Mark issues a stern warning in defence of Senators

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark is­sued a stern warn­ing to mem­bers of the Up­per House yes­ter­day that words or ac­tions that cross the line in­to ha­rass­ment, in­tim­i­da­tion, or at­tempts to shame sen­a­tors for how they vote, or to pres­sure them to vote in a par­tic­u­lar way, will not be tol­er­at­ed or tak­en light­ly.

“Let this serve as a clear warn­ing to all. This House, and cer­tain­ly this chair, will act firm­ly to pro­tect the priv­i­leges, rights, and im­mu­ni­ties of this Sen­ate col­lec­tive­ly and each Sen­a­tor in­di­vid­u­al­ly,” Mark said in a strong state­ment to the Sen­ate.

Mark gave his rul­ing fol­low­ing Sun­day’s me­dia con­fer­ence by Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Kirk Meighoo, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein. The trio launched a scathing at­tack on In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors about a re­cent de­bate in the Sen­ate and strong­ly called out the nine In­de­pen­dents to sup­port yes­ter­day’s de­bate on the Gov­ern­ment’s move to amend the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion Bill.

How­ev­er, Mark be­gan yes­ter­day’s sit­ting, stat­ing, “A se­ri­ous is­sue has been raised with me via cor­re­spon­dence, which I have de­ter­mined war­rants my ear­ly and ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion.

“Par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege pro­vides es­sen­tial pro­tec­tion from ex­ter­nal in­ter­fer­ence of any kind. It guar­an­tees Mem­bers of this Par­lia­ment the free­dom to speak, de­lib­er­ate, and vote with­out fear or co­er­cion. This is en­shrined in Sec­tion 55(1) of the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go which pro­vides, and I quote: ‘Sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of this Con­sti­tu­tion and to the rules and stand­ing or­ders reg­u­lat­ing the pro­ce­dure of the Sen­ate and House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, there shall be free­dom of speech in the Sen­ate and House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives’.”

Mark added, “This free­dom is not a mere cour­tesy; it is a fun­da­men­tal con­sti­tu­tion­al right—sacro­sanct and is be­yond chal­lenge or com­pro­mise.

“As fur­ther af­firmed in Par­lia­men­tary Priv­i­lege in Cana­da (Sec­ond Edi­tion) by JP Joseph Main­got, QC, page 253: ‘To re­flect im­prop­er­ly on a vote in the House and the mo­tives of some Mem­bers is a breach of priv­i­lege’.

“Let me be clear: healthy crit­i­cism is not on­ly per­mit­ted, it is ex­pect­ed in any func­tion­ing democ­ra­cy. No one is sug­gest­ing that ex­pres­sions of dis­ap­point­ment over pol­i­cy out­comes, or dis­agree­ment with a vote, are out of bounds. But what we’re deal­ing with here is not mere crit­i­cism. When words or ac­tions cross the line in­to ha­rass­ment, in­tim­i­da­tion, or at­tempts to shame Sen­a­tors for how they vote or pres­sure them to vote in a par­tic­u­lar way - that is some­thing en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent — and it will not be tol­er­at­ed.”

The Sen­ate Pres­i­dent stressed: “Such ac­tions strike at the very heart of par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy and may con­sti­tute a se­ri­ous breach of priv­i­lege. They will NOT be tak­en light­ly.

“Every sin­gle mem­ber of this Sen­ate, whether In­de­pen­dent, Op­po­si­tion or Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor, pos­sess­es the in­alien­able right to speak and vote freely, guid­ed by con­science and with­out un­due in­flu­ence. These are not ab­stract ideals; they are bind­ing prin­ci­ples.

“Let this serve as a clear warn­ing to all. This House, and cer­tain­ly this chair, will act firm­ly to pro­tect the priv­i­leges, rights, and im­mu­ni­ties of this Sen­ate col­lec­tive­ly and each Sen­a­tor in­di­vid­u­al­ly. That pro­tec­tion will be ex­er­cised to the full ex­tent of the Sen­ate’s au­thor­i­ty and, if nec­es­sary, the ap­pro­pri­ate av­enues for re­dress will be pur­sued with­out hes­i­ta­tion.”

Mean­while, UNC PRO Meighoo, when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, re­spond­ed to the Sen­ate Pres­i­dent’s warn­ing: “Analy­sis and crit­i­cism is not in­tim­i­da­tion. Fur­ther­more, I am a po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist. Analysing pol­i­tics and the Con­sti­tu­tion is my pro­fes­sion. I stand by my every word.

“I too have an in­alien­able right to free­dom of po­lit­i­cal ex­pres­sion. I al­so have a right not to be in­tim­i­dat­ed or threat­ened in the course of do­ing my du­ty.”

Padarath read Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tion about Mark’s rul­ing via What­sApp but did not re­spond. Ho­sein al­so had no re­sponse.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not re­spond to ques­tions about the mat­ter.

How­ev­er, Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Phillip Alexan­der said, “I stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her team. Some is­sues were not­ed and raised and those who were named might want to do some in­tro­spec­tion. We have to work to­geth­er to serve the peo­ple of this coun­try and need to put aside any oth­er no­tion and get down to that busi­ness.”

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi, in yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate de­bate, said of the in­tim­i­da­tion is­sue, “All eyes have been on the In­de­pen­dent bench since an in­cred­i­ble at­tack against the In­de­pen­dent bench by the Gov­ern­ment (on Sun­day). Les­son per­haps marked and learned, we new to this Par­lia­ment, I don’t think any­body means any­thing pe­jo­ra­tive.”