MARVIN’S MOTION FALLS FLAT

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A mo­tion brought by Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les to de­bate on­go­ing dis­rup­tions in the coun­try’s wa­ter sup­ply col­lapsed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day, af­ter he failed to for­mal­ly move it be­fore the ex­piry of his al­lot­ted speak­ing time.

House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh ruled that Gon­za­les had com­mit­ted a pro­ce­dur­al er­ror by not ut­ter­ing the cus­tom­ary phrase, “I beg to move,” at the end of his 45-minute pre­sen­ta­tion.

Gon­za­les had pi­lot­ed the mo­tion on wa­ter sup­ply prob­lems across Trinidad and To­ba­go, call­ing on the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Gov­ern­ment to out­line mea­sures be­ing tak­en to ad­dress the is­sue. He blamed the sit­u­a­tion on what he de­scribed as the Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to con­tin­ue in­vest­ing in wa­ter sup­ply im­prove­ment sys­tems in­tro­duced un­der the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Gon­za­les said even his own con­stituen­cy had been af­fect­ed by dis­rup­tions and urged ur­gent ac­tion in light of what he de­scribed as a grow­ing wa­ter sup­ply cri­sis linked to wors­en­ing El Niño con­di­tions.

How­ev­er, af­ter con­clud­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion, Gon­za­les took his seat with­out for­mal­ly mov­ing the mo­tion. PNM MP Colm Im­bert then rose to sec­ond it.

“We have a se­ri­ous pro­ce­dur­al prob­lem here. MPs have to be dis­ci­plined,” Singh said.

Gon­za­les at­tempt­ed to rise again, but Singh said his al­lot­ted time had ex­pired.

The Speak­er ex­plained that mem­bers have 45 min­utes to present a mo­tion and said he had re­peat­ed­ly sig­nalled to Gon­za­les that his time was run­ning out.

“You nev­er begged to move your mo­tion,” Singh told Gon­za­les, not­ing any at­tempt to do so came on­ly af­ter his speak­ing time had ex­pired.

Singh sus­pend­ed the sit­ting for 15 min­utes to re­view the Stand­ing Or­ders and de­ter­mine whether the mo­tion could still pro­ceed.

When the House re­sumed, the Speak­er said the Stand­ing Or­ders were clear.

“At four and a half min­utes, the mem­ber en­quired of me how much time he had. I said, ‘You have four and a half min­utes.’ At 20 sec­onds be­fore the ex­pi­ra­tion of the time, I said to the pro­ce­dur­al clerk, loud enough for the mem­ber to hear, that he had 20 sec­onds re­main­ing. Whether he heard me or not isn’t my con­cern.”

Singh said two is­sues arose.

“The time ex­pired. The MP failed to move his mo­tion in time. He then took his seat. Then the MP for Diego Mar­tin North East at­tempt­ed to stand to sec­ond a mo­tion which hadn’t been moved.”

He added: “The broad con­cep­tu­al is­sue is whether a mo­tion that has failed, and has not been moved, sur­vives. The an­swer is a plain and ob­vi­ous no.”

Singh said the cir­cum­stances would be re­flect­ed in the Hansard record.

“The mem­ber knew his time was al­most up. The mem­ber sat with­out mov­ing his mo­tion. This pro­ce­dur­al de­ba­cle isn’t my cre­ation,” Singh said.

He stressed that the rul­ing should not be in­ter­pret­ed as an at­tempt to sti­fle de­bate on wa­ter short­ages.

“I want to re­peat it for the ben­e­fit of the pub­lic look­ing on, so I’m not ac­cused of sup­press­ing a de­bate on a le­git­i­mate area of pub­lic con­cern. Wa­ter is some­thing that touch­es all cit­i­zens’ lives. But I don’t have the dis­cre­tion to ex­tend time.”

Singh not­ed that Stand­ing Or­der 122 al­lowed mem­bers to sus­pend the Stand­ing Or­ders by vote and per­mit the mo­tion to pro­ceed.

Gon­za­les, how­ev­er, chal­lenged the rul­ing, ask­ing where the Stand­ing Or­ders specif­i­cal­ly stat­ed that the phrase “I beg to move” had to be ut­tered with­in the 45-minute pe­ri­od.

Ac­cord­ing to Gon­za­les, the Op­po­si­tion’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion was that the 45 min­utes ap­plied to a mem­ber’s con­tri­bu­tion and that for­mal­ly mov­ing the mo­tion was sep­a­rate from that time lim­it.

Singh re­ject­ed the ar­gu­ment.

“It stands to rea­son that a mover of a mo­tion has 45 min­utes to speak and must move the mo­tion with­in that pe­ri­od. Oth­er­wise, the lais­sez-faire in­ter­pre­ta­tion you’re seek­ing to im­pose on the Stand­ing Or­ders can be sub­ject to se­ri­ous abuse. There would be noth­ing to stop MPs speak­ing be­yond their al­lot­ted 45 min­utes.”

Re­it­er­at­ing his po­si­tion, Singh said: “The fail­ure to move the mo­tion ren­ders it null and void.”

He again of­fered mem­bers the op­tion of sus­pend­ing the Stand­ing Or­ders to al­low the mo­tion to pro­ceed.

How­ev­er, Gov­ern­ment House Leader Bar­ry Padarath said the Gov­ern­ment would not sup­port what he de­scribed as an in­frac­tion of the Stand­ing Or­ders.

“That be­ing the case, the mo­tion hav­ing failed to be moved, there’s noth­ing to sec­ond,” Singh ruled. “I think that con­cludes the busi­ness of the House.”

As Padarath moved to an­nounce the ad­journ­ment of the House un­til next Wednes­day, PNM MPs protest­ed loud­ly. Singh nev­er­the­less ad­journed the sit­ting.

In a sub­se­quent me­dia re­lease, Padarath ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of dis­play­ing “ig­no­rance, in­com­pe­tence and a lack of un­der­stand­ing of the Stand­ing Or­ders.”

He said it was par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bling that the er­ror had been made by a for­mer min­is­ter, ex­pe­ri­enced MP and the PNM’s Chief Whip.

“The Gov­ern­ment was ful­ly pre­pared to re­spond and, more so, demon­strate our track record as well as our com­mit­ment to im­prov­ing the na­tion­al wa­ter sup­ply,” Padarath said.

He added that the Gov­ern­ment was bound to re­spect the Speak­er’s rul­ing and up­hold par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dures.

“The Speak­er’s rul­ing was not based on any ac­tion, de­ci­sion or re­quest by the Gov­ern­ment. It was based on the prin­ci­ples of West­min­ster par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy.”

Padarath al­so not­ed that this was the sec­ond oc­ca­sion on which the Op­po­si­tion had been un­able to bring its own Op­po­si­tion busi­ness to com­ple­tion.

“The Gov­ern­ment can­not and will not com­pen­sate for the Op­po­si­tion’s ir­re­spon­si­ble lack of un­der­stand­ing or re­gard for par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dures,” he said, ac­cus­ing the PNM of “lazy, in­ept and ab­hor­rent par­lia­men­tary be­hav­iour.”