Vieira, Attzs push back at PM’s criticism

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors An­tho­ny Vieira and Dr Mar­lene Attzs have pushed back against Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s at­tack on the In­de­pen­dent Bench, de­fend­ing their con­sti­tu­tion­al role and warn­ing that in­flam­ma­to­ry rhetoric does lit­tle to unite an al­ready di­vid­ed coun­try.

Vieira al­so de­scribed as “deeply re­gret­table” the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­c­la­ra­tion that her Gov­ern­ment would no longer en­ter­tain amend­ments from In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, ar­gu­ing that scruti­ny, dis­agree­ment and amend­ment are fun­da­men­tal el­e­ments of the par­lia­men­tary process.

Attzs ques­tioned the tone of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments, par­tic­u­lar­ly as they were made on Re­pub­lic Day, say­ing the oc­ca­sion should have prompt­ed re­flec­tion on a Con­sti­tu­tion that de­lib­er­ate­ly es­tab­lished a place for In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors in the leg­isla­tive process.

Their re­spons­es came af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors as “sa­tan­ic,” “demons” and “scum­bags” fol­low­ing their unan­i­mous re­jec­tion of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill in the Sen­ate.

Vieira said he had no in­ten­tion of re­spond­ing in kind.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go faces se­ri­ous chal­lenges, and I do not be­lieve that de­scrib­ing In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors as ‘sa­tan­ic’ or ‘demons’ con­tributes any­thing use­ful to ad­dress­ing them,” he told Guardian Me­dia.

He stressed that In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors are nei­ther Gov­ern­ment nor Op­po­si­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tives and are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly re­quired to as­sess leg­is­la­tion on its mer­its.

“In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors have a con­sti­tu­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. We are not ap­point­ed to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment or the Op­po­si­tion,” Vieira said.

“We are there to con­sid­er leg­is­la­tion in­de­pen­dent­ly, ex­er­cise our judg­ment and act in what we be­lieve to be the na­tion­al in­ter­est.”

He said that was the ap­proach he took to the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill. While ac­knowl­edg­ing im­prove­ments over the Gov­ern­ment’s pre­vi­ous Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions leg­is­la­tion, Vieira main­tained that sev­er­al pro­vi­sions re­quired stronger safe­guards.

Dur­ing the com­mit­tee stage, he pro­posed amend­ments, in­clud­ing defin­ing “spe­cial op­er­a­tions” and ad­dress­ing con­cerns over the Prime Min­is­ter’s role in se­lect­ing Heads of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions. Gov­ern­ment re­ject­ed those pro­pos­als.

Vieira said Gov­ern­ment was ful­ly en­ti­tled to dis­agree with him and re­ject his amend­ments. How­ev­er, he ar­gued that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­port­ed de­c­la­ra­tion that fu­ture amend­ments from In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors would not be en­ter­tained was a far more trou­bling is­sue.

“What con­cerns me much more than the per­son­al re­marks, how­ev­er, is the re­port­ed state­ment that the Gov­ern­ment will no longer en­ter­tain amend­ments from In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors,” he said.

“If that is in­deed the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion, I find it deeply re­gret­table.”

Ac­cord­ing to Vieira, Par­lia­ment’s pur­pose is not sim­ply to en­dorse leg­is­la­tion placed be­fore it by the Ex­ec­u­tive.

“A strong Gov­ern­ment should be suf­fi­cient­ly con­fi­dent to lis­ten to crit­i­cism, con­sid­er amend­ments on their mer­its, ac­cept good ideas wher­ev­er they come from, and re­ject those with which it dis­agrees.”

Attzs echoed those con­cerns, tak­ing is­sue with the lan­guage re­port­ed­ly used by the Prime Min­is­ter.

“If they were in­deed made by the Prime Min­is­ter, such lan­guage does lit­tle to re­as­sure the coun­try or ad­vance re­spect­ful na­tion-build­ing dis­course,” she said.

She not­ed the irony of the re­marks be­ing made as T&T cel­e­brat­ed 50 years as a Re­pub­lic and ho­n­oured the Con­sti­tu­tion that cre­at­ed the In­de­pen­dent Bench.

Attzs re­called a col­league’s con­tri­bu­tion dur­ing the Sen­ate de­bate, in which In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors were re­mind­ed of their du­ty to look be­yond the po­lit­i­cal colours of “yel­low and red” and in­stead as­sess leg­is­la­tion through “the uni­fy­ing prism of our na­tion­al colours, red, white and black.”

Vieira al­so urged po­lit­i­cal lead­ers to be mind­ful of the im­pact of their words.

“At a time when our coun­try is al­ready deeply di­vid­ed, I would hope that those en­trust­ed with the high­est of­fices would seek to low­er the tem­per­a­ture rather than raise it,” he said.

De­spite the con­tro­ver­sy, Vieira said he would con­tin­ue ap­proach­ing leg­is­la­tion in­de­pen­dent­ly, sup­port­ing Gov­ern­ment mea­sures he con­sid­ered sound and propos­ing changes where he be­lieved im­prove­ments were nec­es­sary.

“If that some­times means dis­agree­ing with the Gov­ern­ment, that is not hos­til­i­ty to the Gov­ern­ment,” he said.

“It is the In­de­pen­dent Bench do­ing its job.”