Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

For­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj says he has put on his "fight­ing clothes" and stands ready to stop the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) Bill 2014, which he be­lieves is a ruse to steal the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.The bill is ex­pect­ed to be de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day.Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj said he has set up a team of lawyers to look at the bill and if it is passed in the House, he will take le­gal ac­tion to stop it from be­ing im­ple­ment­ed.

Say­ing the bill was not on­ly un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and po­lit­i­cal­ly cor­rupt but al­so fraud­u­lent, Ma­haraj said, "It is a recipe for po­lit­i­cal cor­rup­tion and an abuse and mis­use of State pow­er. It is clear­ly a de­vice for Gov­ern­ment to have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to steal the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

"If the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment Bill) 2014 is made law, a prime min­is­ter and min­is­ters of gov­ern­ment who lose at the gen­er­al elec­tions can be al­lowed to con­tin­ue to gov­ern the coun­try for at least 15 days, 200 days, two years, three years and even five years. This is po­lit­i­cal mad­ness. It is out­ra­geous."He ex­plained that clause nine of the bill says dur­ing the sup­ple­men­tary poll the gov­ern­ment can re­main in of­fice un­til it is re­quired to va­cate.

"This gives pow­er to the gov­ern­ment to have the op­por­tu­ni­ty of us­ing state re­sources for its own pur­pos­es and to prac­tise po­lit­i­cal fraud and de­ceit up­on the elec­torate of T&T. This is tak­ing away the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights of the peo­ple and gives pow­er to the gov­ern­ment for it to be dic­ta­to­r­i­al and un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic," Ma­haraj said.He added that it was not true that Gov­ern­ment had con­sult­ed with the na­tion.

Recipe for dic­ta­tor­ship

Ma­haraj ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of mak­ing the con­tro­ver­sial sup­ple­men­tary poll by shroud­ing it with the more pop­u­lar is­sues such as the right to re­call and the two-term gov­ern­ment pro­pos­al.Say­ing the bill was a recipe for dic­ta­tor­ship and would kill democ­ra­cy, Ma­haraj added, "There is a risk that T&T will be­come like Afghanistan, Ukraine, Pak­istan, Libya, Iraq, Syr­ia and oth­er coun­tries which have po­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty."

"The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty would lose its in­vest­ments and the econ­o­my of T&T would be ir­repara­bly dam­aged. Trade union move­ments would be­come pow­er­less. The peo­ple will lose their hu­man and fun­da­men­tal rights and the Con­sti­tu­tion will be­come mean­ing­less," Ma­haraj pre­dict­ed.

Asked if the Gov­ern­ment had the req­ui­site ma­jor­i­ty to pass the law, Ma­haraj said, "If it is a two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty, they do not have it. If it's a three-quar­ter ma­jor­i­ty, they do not have it. If it's a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty, they have it. "If the Con­gress of the Peo­ple de­cides they are go­ing to with­draw sup­port for the bill, then they would not have the three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty, but if I am cor­rect, then its not a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote, it's a two-thirds vote, which the Gov­ern­ment does not have."

"This should not be a le­gal fight, this should be a peo­ple fight," he said, adding that he had set up a group called Democ­ra­cy Watch to lob­by against the ero­sion of democ­ra­cy."If it is one law which is go­ing to mash up T&T, it is this law. We would not be able to re­cov­er if we have a sit­u­a­tion which the los­ing gov­ern­ment gov­erns T&T for even a day, that is go­ing to be a se­ri­ous prece­dent and I do not think the peo­ple will ac­cept that," Ma­haraj said, com­ment­ing that that would give rise to trib­al vot­ing, po­lit­i­cal in­sta­bil­i­ty and vi­o­lence.