PNM seeks Privileges probe into AG’s ‘hot mic’ remark

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) plans to re­fer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie to Par­lia­ment’s Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee over com­ments he made dur­ing a “hot mic” mo­ment in the Low­er House on No­vem­ber 21.

The par­ty said con­sid­er­a­tion is be­ing giv­en to tak­ing sim­i­lar ac­tion against Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter she threat­ened to “cuff down” Diego Mar­tin North/East MP Colm Im­bert dur­ing the same sit­ting.

But the Prime Min­is­ter is fir­ing back, say­ing, “Let them bring it on, we are ready.”

Speak­ing at an Op­po­si­tion me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day in Port-of-Spain, Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les said Je­re­mie’s re­fer­ral has be­come nec­es­sary, de­clar­ing that it is time for the AG to be ex­posed for what he de­scribed as his per­sis­tent use of deroga­to­ry lan­guage in Par­lia­ment.

Gon­za­les said on Fri­day the AG said to some­one in the House, “hush your mouth boy, why you ain’t take your lit­tle man?”

A clip of this “hot mic” in­ci­dent has gone vi­ral on so­cial me­dia.

Gon­za­les added, “Whether it was said to a mem­ber of the op­po­si­tion, whether it was said to a mem­ber of the Gov­ern­ment, it does not take away the se­ri­ous­ness of the state­ment and how un­be­com­ing it was for the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment to con­duct them­selves in this par­tic­u­lar way.”

The Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip said he was not sur­prised to hear what the AG said, as he claimed that is Je­re­mie’s usu­al con­duct in the Low­er House.

“I will file a mo­tion of priv­i­leges against the Ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al on this mat­ter. Even though he’s en­ti­tled to come to the House as a Sen­a­tor, he is not an elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive, and I am fed up of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al com­ing to the elect­ed House and dis­re­spect­ing elect­ed mem­bers of Par­lia­ment.”

Gon­za­les said the AG has in the past ex­posed that he is mo­ti­vat­ed by vengeance against his for­mer PNM par­ty.

“It per­haps should wake up the con­scious­ness of all cit­i­zens that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is some­one that you should pay close at­ten­tion to. Be­cause in one of the very ear­ly pro­ceed­ings in this 13th Par­lia­ment, he point­ed to some of us in the Op­po­si­tion and he said, ‘I am com­ing for you, I am com­ing for you, I am com­ing for you.’ And that was enough red flag for the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go to keep an eye on the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al or the oc­cu­pant of that of­fice.”

The Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip re­called that for­mer House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George rep­ri­mand­ed Stu­art Young for com­ments hurled at then op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, which were deemed of­fen­sive in na­ture.

An­nisette-George de­scribed the com­ments as “un­par­lia­men­tary” and “rep­re­hen­si­ble” and ruled that Young re­tract his words and apol­o­gise to the House.

Fol­low­ing this rul­ing, Stu­art Young stood up, with­drew his words and apol­o­gised. The Deputy Speak­er then ruled that the apol­o­gy was ac­cept­ed, and Young would not be re­ferred to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges.

Gon­za­les said now that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress is in con­trol of the House, the cul­ture has changed.

Mean­while, Diego Mar­tin North/East MP Colm Im­bert said he will al­so con­sid­er re­fer­ring Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee. He said he will make his de­ci­sion by to­day.

“I’m giv­ing se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion to fil­ing a mo­tion of priv­i­lege. If I do, I would hope that the Speak­er would treat it with the se­ri­ous­ness that it de­serves.”

In a brief but sharp ex­change dur­ing the sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Fri­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Im­bert, “Don’t point at me.” Im­bert replied, “Why not?” prompt­ing the Prime Min­is­ter to re­spond, “Be­cause I’ll cuff you down.”

But dur­ing yes­ter­day’s me­dia brief­ing, Im­bert ex­plained that he was not try­ing to pro­voke the Prime Min­is­ter when he point­ed at her.

Im­bert said that he was mere­ly ges­tur­ing in her di­rec­tion be­cause he un­der­stood she had called for a di­vi­sion dur­ing the vote on the Vir­tu­al As­sets Bill. Hav­ing made a sim­i­lar re­quest him­self, he want­ed House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh to ac­knowl­edge it.

“So, I am there, right hand ges­tur­ing to­wards the Speak­er, left hand ges­tur­ing to­wards the Prime Min­is­ter just to as­sist the Speak­er to un­der­stand that what I’m telling him is that both I and the Prime Min­is­ter want­ed a di­vi­sion, and then this whole thing be­gins.”

But Im­bert said the threat did not end there.

“And she went on to say af­ter­wards, ‘come out­side’, im­ply­ing that she would cuff me down out­side.”

In 2015, speak­ing in the Low­er House, Im­bert fa­mous­ly urged mem­bers of the then Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment to ad­dress the PNM op­po­si­tion “out­side” the Par­lia­ment.

“What­ev­er you have to say, say it out­side! If yuh name man, come out­side!”

But cit­ing the laws gov­ern­ing the Unit­ed King­dom’s Par­lia­ment, Im­bert said an MP could be ex­pelled for such threats.

Im­bert wants an apol­o­gy from the Prime Min­is­ter.

Leader of the House Bar­ry Padarath has al­ready said no apol­o­gy will come be­cause he claimed Im­bert had been ha­rass­ing the Prime Min­is­ter up to that point.

Im­bert, how­ev­er, con­tend­ed that it was not pos­si­ble, as he said Per­sad-Bisses­sar came to the House late in the pro­ceed­ings and there­fore he would not have had a chance to in­ter­act fre­quent­ly with her.

Im­bert said at the time he did call on the House Speak­er for his pro­tec­tion, but said it ap­peared that Jagdeo Singh did not hear him.

Mean­while, Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House Bar­ry Padarath is dou­bling down on his claim that Im­bert was ha­rass­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, and if the PNM wants to take ac­tion through the Par­lia­ment, he, like the Prime Min­is­ter, is chal­leng­ing the Op­po­si­tion to “bring it on.”

Short­ly af­ter the PNM’s me­dia con­fer­ence, Padarath told Guardian Me­dia, “Tell the PNM we are not afraid of them. My mem­bers are not sheep, they have a right to de­fend them­selves, days for sit­ting down and re­main­ing qui­et are over.”

When told about Im­bert’s ex­pla­na­tion as to why he was ges­tur­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter, he replied, “That’s not true, plus the Speak­er didn’t need any in­ter­ven­tion from any mem­ber for a di­vi­sion called by the Prime Min­is­ter, she was loud and clear. Im­bert, in his usu­al ob­nox­ious style, was throw­ing barbs at the PM when she asked him to stop it and stop point­ing at her. This mo­lesta­tion of mem­bers is a usu­al thing by PNM mem­bers, in­clud­ing Im­bert.”

Padarath in­sist­ed that Im­bert is not as in­no­cent as he claims to be in this mat­ter.

“I was a wit­ness on Fri­day to the con­stant bar­rage of at­tacks he threw at the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter up to the point where he start­ed to point at her, and she asked him to stop it. This lev­el of bul­ly­ing is not new to us. I en­dured those at­tacks from Mr Im­bert him­self when I first came in­to the Par­lia­ment, up to this day he has nev­er apol­o­gised or shown re­morse for his de­spi­ca­ble be­hav­iour.”

The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al could not be reached for com­ment.