PNM warns Bail Amendment Bill may face court challenge

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

PNM deputy po­lit­i­cal leader San­jiv Bood­hu has ex­pressed con­cern over the pas­sage of the Gov­ern­ment’s Bail Amend­ment Bill 2026 by a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty, rather than the re­quired spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty, warn­ing that its pro­vi­sions may face le­gal chal­lenges in the courts.

Bood­hu ar­gued that the pub­lic will con­tin­ue to dis­trust the Gov­ern­ment on mat­ters such as this bill—and even its 965 ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est un­der the Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion Plan—be­cause the Prime Min­is­ter has yet to clar­i­fy al­le­ga­tions that two In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors sought “per­son­al favours” from a Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor to vote for the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Zones bill.

“How can peo­ple trust the Gov­ern­ment on this Bail Amend­ment Bill and be will­ing to work with it when the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­cent al­le­ga­tions have cast sus­pi­cion on the en­tire Sen­ate, bring­ing all in­to dis­re­pute re­gard­ing an al­leged crim­i­nal act, in­clud­ing by the Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor who with­held the in­for­ma­tion?” Bood­hu said yes­ter­day.

“The al­le­ga­tions are crim­i­nal in na­ture, pun­ish­able by jail, yet three sen­a­tors con­tin­ue sit­ting in the Sen­ate and pass­ing leg­is­la­tion, notwith­stand­ing be­ing ac­cused of so­lic­it­ing bribes. This com­pro­mis­es the Sen­ate as a House of Par­lia­ment and all leg­is­la­tion ap­proved by it.”

Bood­hu was among PNM sen­a­tors who vot­ed against the Bail Amend­ment Bill last Fri­day. The leg­is­la­tion re­quires that any­one charged with mur­der or an­oth­er first-sched­ule of­fence must show ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances when ap­ply­ing for bail. Where bail is grant­ed and a sure­ty presents $30,000 or more in cash or deed, they must prove at a spe­cial court hear­ing that the funds or prop­er­ty were ob­tained law­ful­ly.

The bill orig­i­nal­ly re­quired a three-fifths spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty for pas­sage but was amend­ed to be passed by a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty. It passed with 20 votes—15 from Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors plus In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors Mar­lene Attzs, Court­ney Mc­Nish, Ali­cia Lalite-Eti­enne, Dr De­siree Mur­ray, and Michael Si­mon De La Bastide (SC).

Bood­hu and the oth­er five Op­po­si­tion PNM sen­a­tors vot­ed against it, along with In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors An­tho­ny Vieira (SC), Sophia Chote (SC), Fran­cis Lewis, and Can­dice Jones-Sim­mons.

Yes­ter­day, Bood­hu said the bill af­fects every­one in­ter­act­ing with the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

“The Gov­ern­ment draft­ed the bill with a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty vote re­quire­ment but amend­ed it to a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty be­fore it came to the Sen­ate. I’ve ar­gued that when a dis­pute aris­es re­gard­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty and the need for a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty, the Gov­ern­ment and Par­lia­ment ought to adopt the high­est stan­dard as a mat­ter of prin­ci­ple,” he said.

“The bill di­rect­ly af­fects an ac­cused per­son’s lib­er­ty. It is there­fore in­cum­bent up­on Par­lia­ment to act in a man­ner com­men­su­rate with the se­ri­ous­ness of the leg­is­la­tion and seek a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty. In­stead, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al ar­gued that shift­ing the bur­den to the ac­cused to prove the law­ful ori­gin of bail as­sets did not in­val­i­date the law—but the is­sue isn’t in­val­i­da­tion. The is­sue is pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence that the Gov­ern­ment will ap­proach leg­isla­tive change at the high­est con­sti­tu­tion­al stan­dard, not the bare min­i­mum.”

AG John Je­re­mie did not re­spond to a What­sApp query from on Bood­hu’s con­cerns.

Ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of a “lazy, cow­ard­ly, strong­man ap­proach to leg­isla­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,” Bood­hu said the Prime Min­is­ter’s al­le­ga­tions against the In­de­pen­dents and a Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor com­pro­mised both the Sen­ate and Par­lia­ment.

“Now the PM and her Gov­ern­ment, which sup­port her claims in what is a crim­i­nal mat­ter, can­not be trust­ed on is­sues. Noth­ing they say can be ac­cept­ed un­til this is ad­dressed,” he added, not­ing that re­quests by the Op­po­si­tion and one In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor for the mat­ter to be ex­am­ined by the Par­lia­men­tary Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee were re­ject­ed by Par­lia­ment’s pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers.