Senate votes to remove John-Bates from National Security Committee

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

The Sen­ate yes­ter­day adopt­ed a spe­cial re­port rec­om­mend­ing the re­moval of Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates from the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, deep­en­ing the fall­out from the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing ed­its to a par­lia­men­tary wit­ness state­ment sub­mit­ted to the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC).

The mo­tion passed with 16 sen­a­tors vot­ing in favour, in­clud­ing In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Court­ney Mc­Nish. Thir­teen sen­a­tors vot­ed against the mea­sure, while In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Sophia Chote ab­stained.

The re­port stems from con­cerns raised dur­ing an April 29 JSC meet­ing on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty af­ter de­tails emerged that John-Bates, while serv­ing as a mem­ber of the PAAC, edit­ed a wit­ness state­ment sub­mit­ted by for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh. The doc­u­ment was filed with track changes still vis­i­ble, re­veal­ing amend­ments made by both John-Bates and Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi.

John-Bates was sub­se­quent­ly re­moved from the PAAC on April 16 and re­ferred to Par­lia­ment’s Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges on May 1—the same day she in­formed the Sen­ate that she had ten­dered her res­ig­na­tion to Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s de­bate, Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the Sen­ate Dar­rell Al­la­har ar­gued that John-Bates’ con­tin­ued pres­ence on the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Com­mit­tee was un­der­min­ing its work and cred­i­bil­i­ty.

“We, on this side, feel strong­ly that Sen­a­tor John-Bates must be re­moved from the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee forth­with. Her pres­ence on that com­mit­tee is keep­ing back the com­mit­tee’s work,” Al­la­har said.

The Gov­ern­ment main­tained that the is­sue was not sim­ply about pro­ce­dure, but pub­lic con­fi­dence in par­lia­men­tary over­sight bod­ies, par­tic­u­lar­ly one re­spon­si­ble for mat­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

The spe­cial re­port de­tailed ob­jec­tions raised by Com­mit­tee vice chair­man Dr Roodal Mooni­lal dur­ing the April 29 meet­ing.

Mooni­lal ar­gued that John-Bates’ ac­tions in the PAAC had com­pro­mised con­fi­dence in her abil­i­ty to par­tic­i­pate im­par­tial­ly in dis­cus­sions in­volv­ing sen­si­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters.

Ac­cord­ing to the re­port, Mooni­lal stressed that con­fi­den­tial­i­ty and pub­lic trust were cen­tral to the work of the com­mit­tee and rec­om­mend­ed that John-Bates be re­moved and re­placed.

John-Bates re­port­ed­ly re­ject­ed the rec­om­men­da­tion dur­ing the meet­ing, in­sist­ing there had been no for­mal find­ing of guilt against her.

Op­po­si­tion MP Kei­th Scot­land al­so ar­gued that the com­mit­tee lacked the au­thor­i­ty to re­move her.

The ma­jor­i­ty of mem­bers nev­er­the­less vot­ed in favour of prepar­ing a spe­cial re­port for the Sen­ate.

John-Bates was ab­sent from yes­ter­day’s sit­ting, with Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors in­di­cat­ing she was un­well.

Tem­po­rary Sen­a­tor San­jiv Bood­hu at­tend­ed in her place and ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of po­lit­i­cal hypocrisy.

John-Bates ten­dered her res­ig­na­tion from the Sen­ate on May 1, more than two weeks af­ter the mat­ter first be­came pub­lic.

Un­der Sec­tion 40(2)(b) of the Con­sti­tu­tion, Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors are ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent act­ing on the ad­vice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader, mean­ing the fi­nal de­ci­sion on John-Bates’ fu­ture re­mains with Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les de­spite the Sen­ate’s adop­tion of the re­port.

John-Bates ab­sent from Sen­ate

Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates was ab­sent from yes­ter­day’s sit­ting of the Sen­ate as scruti­ny sur­round­ing her con­duct con­tin­ues to in­ten­si­fy fol­low­ing her re­moval from the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC) and re­fer­ral to Par­lia­ment’s Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges.

Her ab­sence al­so fol­lows her res­ig­na­tion weeks ago, which Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has not yet con­firmed as ac­cept­ed.

Leader of the Op­po­si­tion bench, Dr Amery Browne, told re­porters that John-Bates’ ab­sence was tem­po­rary and linked to ill­ness.

“She’s sought leave from the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate on the ba­sis that she’s feel­ing un­well,” said Dr Amery Browne.

He al­so de­clined to spec­u­late on whether John-Bates’ ab­sence was linked to men­tal health con­cerns aris­ing from the con­tro­ver­sy.

“I was once a young par­lia­men­tar­i­an my­self and it is a very dif­fi­cult course in one’s ca­reer. The at­ten­tion can be bru­tal, and Sen­a­tor John-Bates, hav­ing ad­mit­ted to an er­ror, has been the sub­ject of in­tense pres­sure in­side and out­side of the Par­lia­ment,” he not­ed.

He said he could not pro­vide a time­line for when a de­ci­sion on John-Bates’ fu­ture would be made, ar­gu­ing that the mat­ter was more com­plex than it may ap­pear pub­licly.

“I don’t think it is rea­son­able to ex­pect an im­me­di­ate de­ter­mi­na­tion. It may ap­pear to be a sim­ple mat­ter to some folks, but it is not, in fact, as sim­ple as it seems. The Leader of the Op­po­si­tion has re­quest­ed and re­ceived a num­ber of re­ports which I know she is giv­ing due con­sid­er­a­tion to, and speak­ing to the rel­e­vant in­di­vid­u­als who would have been a part of this sit­u­a­tion, and in due course, I sus­pect in the near fu­ture, will give her de­ter­mi­na­tion in the mat­ter.”

“Just bear in mind there is the po­lit­i­cal and maybe pro­fes­sion­al fu­ture of a young par­lia­men­tar­i­an at stake in all of this...We will get it right and the best de­ci­sion will be made. I’m very con­fi­dent of that.”

Speak­ing on his way to the Sen­ate, her re­place­ment tem­po­rary Sen­a­tor San­jiv Bood­hu said he was not an­tic­i­pat­ing a per­ma­nent ap­point­ment to the Up­per House.

“I don’t know that there’ll be a va­can­cy soon in the Sen­ate. Like I said, the Op­po­si­tion leader is well en­ti­tled to take the nec­es­sary time to make a right de­ci­sion in this mat­ter. So, I don’t know that there’s a va­can­cy in the Sen­ate or there will be.”

Asked whether he would be will­ing to as­sume the role per­ma­nent­ly if called up­on, Bood­hu said, “I have no com­ment on that. I am ready to serve in any ca­pac­i­ty in which I am called up­on to serve. Right now, I serve as the deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM, and that’s the job I am in­ter­est­ed in car­ry­ing out.”