Prof Hamid Ghany

Last Thurs­day morn­ing, Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark ex­er­cised his cast­ing vote to have the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill 2026 passed in the Sen­ate. The ex­er­cise of his cast­ing vote on­ly arose be­cause all of the Op­po­si­tion and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors vot­ed to­geth­er to cre­ate a 15-15 tied out­come on the floor of the Sen­ate. This re­quired him to cast the tie-break­ing vote.

There are no writ­ten rules or reg­u­la­tions that re­quire the Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer in ei­ther House of Par­lia­ment here to vote in any par­tic­u­lar way. The UK par­lia­men­tary con­ven­tion is that the Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer ought to main­tain the sta­tus quo when break­ing a tie.

On Sep­tem­ber 8, 2017, Speak­er Brigid An­nisette-George vot­ed three times in one af­ter­noon in ex­er­cis­ing her cast­ing vote in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in favour of the then Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment.

These events de­stroyed that sta­tus quo con­ven­tion and es­tab­lished no set­tled prac­tice in our Par­lia­ment on cast­ing votes.

Dur­ing the con­sid­er­a­tion of the Sen­ate amend­ments to the Bail (Ac­cess to Bail)(Amend­ment) Bill 2017 in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the fol­low­ing ex­changes took place:

“Madam Speak­er: I be­lieve the re­sponse to the ap­pli­ca­tion was al­ready giv­en by the Mem­ber for Pointe-a-Pierre. Okay. [Crosstalk] So that the ques­tion—[Crosstalk]—I shall now put the ques­tion with re­spect to the de­bate on Mo­tion No. 1 be now ad­journed to a date to be fixed.” (Hansard, House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Sep­tem­ber 8th, 2017, p. 276).

There was a di­vi­sion tak­en on this mo­tion. The re­sult was 17-17. This is how Speak­er An­nisette-George han­dled the tie:

“Madam Speak­er: Mem­bers, the re­sult of the di­vi­sion is 17 for, 17 against, so there­fore, as Chair, I now ex­er­cise the cast­ing vote and I vote in favour.

Ques­tion agreed to.

Dr Mooni­lal: Madam Speak­er, if we vote yes, that is not the sta­tus quo?

Madam Speak­er: Please, pro­ceed. [Crosstalk]

Hon. Mem­ber: You run­ning the House?” (Hansard, p. 278).

The Speak­er dis­re­gard­ed Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who was seek­ing clar­i­ty on what was, up un­til then, the stan­dard par­lia­men­tary prac­tice for the cast­ing vote to main­tain the sta­tus quo.

This sit­u­a­tion was re­peat­ed twice more that af­ter­noon on the Sen­ate amend­ments on the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure (Plea Dis­cus­sion and Plea Agree­ment) Bill 2017.

The first of the two mo­tions is record­ed as fol­lows:

“Mr Al-Rawi: Madam Speak­er, I beg to move the fol­low­ing Mo­tion stand­ing in my name: Be it re­solved that the Sen­ate amend­ments to the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure (Plea Dis­cus­sion and Plea Agree­ment) Bill, 2017 list­ed in Ap­pen­dix III be now con­sid­ered. Ques­tion put.” (Hansard, p. 278).

The fi­nal vote on the di­vi­sion was 17-17. Hansard states:

“Madam Speak­er: Hon. Mem­bers, the re­sult of the di­vi­sion is 17 Mem­bers for, 17 Mem­bers against, no ab­sten­tions. As Chair, I shall now ex­er­cise my cast­ing vote and I vote in favour of.

Ques­tion agreed to.

Dr Mooni­lal: Madam Speak­er, can I seek clar­i­fi­ca­tion?

Madam Speak­er: Madam Clerk, could you kind­ly pro­ceed?” (Hansard, p. 280).

Once again, Dr Mooni­lal was dis­re­gard­ed in seek­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tion. The con­ven­tions on the cast­ing vote had now been ut­ter­ly trashed.

The fi­nal nail in the cof­fin on the cast­ing vote came when the Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, sought the ad­journ­ment of the House:

“The Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment (Hon. Camille Robin­son-Reg­is): Madam Speak­er, if I could? I beg to move that this House do now ad­journ to Fri­day the 15th day of Sep­tem­ber 2017 at 1.30 pm. At that time, we will do Mo­tions 1 and 2 and we will fol­low the Or­der Pa­per.

Mr Lee: Madam Speak­er, I just want to in­ter­ject. I lis­tened to the Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness and I just want to state on the record that we came here to de­bate Mo­tion 1 and 2 and it is very dis­heart­en­ing af­ter nine weeks of va­ca­tion.

Madam Speak­er: Mem­ber for Pointe-a-Pierre, the Mo­tion for the ad­journ­ment is put with­out any de­bate. [Crosstalk]

Ques­tion put.

Madam Speak­er: Take a di­vi­sion on that?

Hon. Mem­bers: Yes. [Con­tin­u­ous crosstalk]

Madam Speak­er: Mem­bers, could we take the vote in si­lence, please?” (Hansard, p. 281).

“Madam Speak­er: Hon. Mem­bers, the re­sult of the di­vi­sion is 17 Mem­bers for, 17 Mem­bers against, no ab­sten­tions. In the cir­cum­stances, the Chair us­ing the cast­ing vote, I vote in favour.

Ques­tion agreed to.

House ad­journed ac­cord­ing­ly.” (Hansard, p. 283).

Af­ter Sep­tem­ber 2017, the cast­ing vote con­ven­tions were shat­tered by Speak­er An­nisette-George. Since then, there is no set­tled prac­tice on the ex­er­cise of the cast­ing vote by Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cers in our Par­lia­ment. Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Mark was ful­ly en­ti­tled to copy Speak­er An­nisette-George in vot­ing on the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, as he did, which passed 16-15.

Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany is Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI. He was se­lect­ed by the THA to guide the dis­cus­sions on To­ba­go au­ton­o­my.