Gail Alexan­der

There has been ju­bi­la­tion and cel­e­bra­tion among some in the PP Cab­i­net re­gard­ing what has hap­pened in­ter­na­tion­al­ly with Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er, PNM Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds has said."They're hap­py. In fact I'm con­fi­dent the Prime Min­is­ter is hap­py... with all the pre­tence," Hinds added.Speak­ing dur­ing de­bate on a bill to em­pow­er the Jus­tice Min­istry, Hinds said min­is­ters should bring pres­sure to bear on those high­er up to cleanse the pub­lic's view of Gov­ern­ment that it was pro­tect­ing some­one ac­cused of a "very, very se­ri­ous of­fence" in the is­sue con­cern­ing Warn­er.Act­ing Sen­ate pres­i­dent Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit and Hinds clashed sev­er­al times yes­ter­day dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion, in­clud­ing his ref­er­ence to the Warn­er/FI­FA is­sue.When PP Sen­ate leader Sub­has Pan­day called Hinds "fool­ish" Hinds protest­ed the fact Ou­dit did not point out to Pan­day that the term was "un­par­lia­men­tary."

Hinds told Ou­dit: "Madame vice pres­i­dent, you did not take him to task on it. You said noth­ing.Ou­dit called on Hinds to con­tin­ue speak­ing. Both had ex­changes a cou­ple more times, be­fore and af­ter that, on Ou­dit's rul­ing where Hinds' state­ments were con­cerned.Ou­dit said she con­curred with the PP Sen­ate leader Sub­has Pan­day on one point when Hinds called on the Prime Min­is­ter to deal with al­le­ga­tions against em­bat­tled Min­is­ter Warn­er.Hinds al­so clashed ver­bal­ly with Pan­day who had claimed Hinds had ap­peared on tele­vi­sion yes­ter­day around 6 am in his at­tor­ney's re­galia-"bib"-when court was not yet in ses­sion. Pan­day ac­cused him of ad­ver­tis­ing.Hinds and PNM's Faris Al Rawi took of­fence, with Al Rawi not­ing that ad­ver­tis­ing by at­tor­neys is against the law. Pan­day with­drew the claim.